The Operator

  Disgusted, Peri put her head against the window. She was going to kill Bill for this. Helen would be a nice second. Michael didn’t know it, but he wouldn’t live out the night, either.

  His mood insufferably cheerful, Michael looked both ways before gunning into traffic. It was busy, and she held on to the door and he changed lanes and made a nuisance of himself. “Your girly car is starting to grow on me. Maybe I’ll keep it when you’re dead. Get it repainted.”

  Peri wadded up the candy wrapper and swallowed the last bite. “Reeves. Change amplitude thirty down.”

  The car made a pleasant ding. She almost could feel the electric blanket running through the car change as, outside, the car shifted from white to a steely gray.

  Michael grunted. “Remind me to beat the master code out of you so I can reprogram it.”

  Peri gazed listlessly at the entrance to the industrial park in all its bland grandeur. “Michael, honey, you’re not going to survive the next twenty-four hours.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not the one slipping into withdrawal.”

  Newb, she thought, rubbing a hand under her nose. “I’m not going to die of withdrawal, and you won’t live long enough to have to worry about it.”

  Michael glanced at her, then back to the big three-story cube of a building they were aiming for, the landscaping lit up by flood lamps to show stark branches waiting for spring. “You still think you’re going to kill me?”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t think you’ll give me the chance.”

  “Got that right.”

  The sign on the lawn said YEOMON INDUSTRIES. There were three cars in the lot, and Michael pulled into a spot at the outskirts, worried about a possible ding, perhaps. Peri watched Michael check his clip, watched as his game face settled in: a blank nothing holding his tension in check. “We’re just going to go in?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I’m not letting you stay in the car like a golden retriever.”

  “Good, because I’m not going to.” Even with the cuffs on, she got out before he did. Worried, she looked at the receptionist behind the window of glass. There was only one end here. Feeling ill, she sent her gaze to the cameras focused on the lot and the front door. Helen would be coming, called when someone she had asked to be killed walked in the front door of her research facility. Peri would have to have it done by then, or the woman would take steps to scrub her. Evading that would be a pain in the ass, and she was tired. This is so bad for my asthma.

  Michael grabbed her arm, yanking her into step beside him. “Keep your mouth shut,” he said, weapon hidden by his leg as he strode forward to the door. “We are not a team, and I’m not going to draft if you get shot. If you die, it’s your own fault.”

  A new feeling of vulnerability slid out from the cracks of her ill-defined plan. “Is that your new mantra?” she asked, hating that she got flippant when she got scared. “If you die, it’s your own fault?”

  The door was locked and, ignoring her, Michael tapped on the glass.

  Inside, the receptionist hit the intercom. “I’m sorry, but we’re closed. If you’d—” The woman’s eyes widened. She made a gasping scream, ducking as Michael shot the door.

  Peri covered her face with her arm, stumbling when Michael dragged her inside. Heart pounding, she watched, disgusted as he leaned over the reception desk.

  Again, the gun rang out with two short pops. The woman stopped screaming.

  Angry now, Peri stood in the center of the lobby, turning to show the recording camera her cuffed hands. “That wasn’t necessary.”

  With a familiar, intent focus, Michael wiped the splattered blood from his face and scanned the monitors behind the desk. “Upstairs. This way.”

  Her mind went to the three cars in the lot, three people who wouldn’t make it home this morning. Sure enough, Michael detoured first to the break room, where he shot the security guard in the back as he ran for the alarm. The third person on-site was in a lab coat, and he died in the hall, his soda spilling a fast vanguard to his slowly seeping blood, his sandwich scattered across the floor in a fantastic pattern of lettuce and tomato mixed with the gray and red of his brain.

  “You are a one-man killing machine,” she said, convinced Michael liked it too much. “Not a lot of finesse here, though.”

  “I’m working, not making art.” Michael dragged her down the hall, her stocking feet sliding as he pulled her past a series of locked glass doors. Behind each one was an empty lab. “There he is,” he said, stopping before the last.

  Fear slid through her as Peri looked in to see Silas standing at a lab bench, horrified as he watched the monitors in the ceiling corners showing three dead people.

  Saying nothing, Michael shot the lock, and Peri’s nose wrinkled at the scent of burned electronics. Kicking the disengaged door in, Michael yanked her after him.

  Silas already had his hands up. “Don’t shoot. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “You think?” Michael shoved Peri at a lab bench, well away from the open door. “I’m sure they didn’t give you any weapons, but it’s a lab and there’s all sorts of things in here that can kill you.” Holstering his weapon, he lit a Bunsen burner with an Opti lighter. “This has possibilities.”

  Eyes roving the lab for assets, Peri pushed the hair out of her eyes, her cuffs clinking. Silas might be in Helen’s lab, but she was betting Silas wasn’t making Evocane. No, if she was lucky, he was making the modified version with all the addictive properties and none of the active ingredients. All she had to do was get Michael to take it. Too many ifs. I’m tired of this.

  But a pang went through her, guilt that she was going to kill Michael with the very thing he most desired—what they both did.

  “Peri? You okay?” Silas asked, not moving from where he’d been when they had come in.

  Smile mocking, Michael pushed her toward a high lab stool. “Sit,” he said. “Stay.”

  Lips pressed together, she did, able to feel the heat from the burner five feet from her.

  “Now.” Michael turned to Silas, his fake smile gone. “Evocane. She said you had some.”

  “Ah, I don’t—”

  Peri gasped as Michael wrapped an arm around her neck, pulling her off the stool as he reached for the burner. It glinted six inches from her eye, and she tensed, ready to act as a strand of hair smoldered. Okay. Maybe killing him with what he wants will be easier than I thought.

  “Wait!” Silas took a step forward. “Don’t hurt her. Please. I don’t have the accelerator. Evocane won’t do you any good!”

  Peri struggled to breathe, pulled off balance and her back twisted. “He has the accelerator. Give him the stuff you made for me, Silas. I’ll be okay!” she choked out, and then she could breathe as Michael shoved her up and away.

  She hit the bench. Turning, Peri tossed her hair out of her eyes. Silas stared at her, knowing what she was asking. His eye twitched when she nodded. Let him die from a psychotic episode of remembering twin lines. The bastard deserved nothing less. “Peri, it’s for you,” he said, his reluctance obvious, but not for the reason Michael probably thought. Silas was going to feel responsible for his death, but it wouldn’t be his doing. Peri had planned this, twisted Michael into it.

  “So where is it, little professor?” Michael said pleasantly as he adjusted the burner. It made a dry hiss. Silas’s big hands clenched, and Michael cocked his head in warning, daring him to try anything.

  “Give it to him,” Peri said. “I made a deal. If I got him accelerated, he’d let us go.”

  “And we’re trusting this?” Silas grumbled, but he turned, his lab coat furling as he went to a glass cabinet. Unlocking it, he brought out a palm-size, white plastic bottle.

  “Try again, little professor,” Michael said, taking a new grip on her. “I’m not snorting that.”

  “It’s Evocane.” Silas’s jaw was clenched at the half lie, and Peri hoped Michael thought it was only Silas’s reluctance in handing it over. “If it is a
maintenance drug, it should be less obtrusive. Ideally it will be a pill. I haven’t had enough time with it is all.”

  Michael’s brow furrowed in mistrust, his gaze flicking to the monitors still showing an empty parking lot and bloodied lobby. “A pill?” Michael questioned, and Peri jerked herself free of him when his grip eased. She pulled herself up against the lab bench, not moving as Michael set the burning flame aside.

  “You expect me to trust that?” Michael said, gesturing with his Glock. “When you’re sitting in the middle of your lab of poisons?”

  “I’ll take it,” Peri blurted, hoping she didn’t look desperate, but the pinch of withdrawal was becoming more insistent.

  Michael gave her an askance look, his thin lips quirking in an odd smile. “Feeling a little anxious, are we?”

  “I said I’d take it,” she repeated. “It’s the only way you’ll know that it’s the real stuff.”

  “I suppose it’s better than you drooling all over the counter.” Michael gestured for Silas to back up. “Tell me how much she needs,” Michael said, and Silas glanced at the scale, focus going distant as he mumbled his way through a weight calculation. “How much!” Michael shouted, and Silas jumped.

  “Six grams. About six grams. You need six and a half,” he said, clearly worried as he started to sweat.

  “Six grams.” Michael tared the scale. “I haven’t used one of these since high school.”

  Peri tried to catch Silas’s eye as Michael began tapping powder onto it. That she was going to ingest it first was suddenly not that appealing. It was the modified Evocane, right?

  “Here you are, Peri. Time for your meds.”

  Her hands shook as she took the little wax paper tray, suddenly unsure. But Silas wouldn’t give her anything to hurt her. “You aren’t funny. You know that, don’t you?” she said. “The reason anyone laughs is because you’re the only one with a gun.”

  Silas’s foot scuffed, and Michael’s head snapped around. Eyes wide, Silas said, “Put it under your tongue. Like glycerin.”

  Head hurting, she folded the paper into a funnel and angled it in. It hit with a soft hush and flash of warmth. Another breath, and her headache vanished. She straightened from the hunch she hadn’t known she was in, shoulders easing as the last of the grit dissolved to nothing. The relief had been immediate. “Thank you,” she said softly, and Silas flushed. It wasn’t just for this, but what it meant. If they managed to survive the next few hours, she’d have her freedom back—such as it was.

  “That’s good enough for me,” Michael said as he angled his head back and dumped it in. “No one move,” he mumbled, looking at his watch as the powder dissolved. “We’ll just wait the required two minutes. You do realize I have no need of either of you anymore?”

  Silas glanced at the monitors. “That’s why I hit the silent alarm when you busted through the front door.”

  “Shit,” Michael swore as he saw Helen striding through the building, at least six armed people with her, two in combat gear. “Damn it,” Michael added as he took the syringe with the accelerator from his front pocket and flicked the cap off. “That woman has the timing of a seventeen-year-old. Both of you.” He looked up, motioning with his head. “Over there where I can see you both.”

  Peri obediently moved, her resolution beginning to waver. He was going to push poison into his veins thinking it would make him a god. It was going to kill him even as it gave him everything he wanted. Was it wrong to want something so bad you were willing to kill for it? She wanted her freedom. Was it any different from what Michael desired?

  “Is there a back door?” she whispered as she and Silas backed even deeper into the lab.

  “No. If there was, I would have been through it five minutes ago.”

  His expression was grim, and she found his hand, giving it a squeeze. “This isn’t your fault. I did this, not you. I wanted you to be safe, and this was the only way I could think to get to you.”

  Silas’s attention jerked from Michael to her, the man currently staring at his watch and cursing. “Trapped in a lab with a crazy man is safe?” Silas asked.

  “I won’t let you die,” she said, and his expression blanked.

  “Don’t promise me that,” he said, but it wasn’t his decision.

  “I’m sorry for leaving you with LB,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have done that. I was scared.”

  “You were scared?” he echoed, but his wonder vanished when Helen came in, flanked by her security. Brow furrowed, he edged in front of Peri. “There’s a cuff key on my key chain,” he said. “Back pocket.”

  Thank God, she thought, fingers awkward as she fished for them.

  Michael grinned, tossing the used syringe of accelerator away. It was done.

  For three long seconds, Helen stood there in her pristine white dress suit, seeing the facts and trying to guess what had transpired. “I told you to retire Reed. Explain this,” she said, motioning for two of her security to circle around behind them. Peri reluctantly dropped back, the key still in Silas’s pocket.

  Michael stood unmoving, his expression slack as he listened to his body, feeling the change, exalting in it. “I will retire her. I had some unfinished business first.”

  Helen’s brow furrowed as she looked from Michael to Peri and Silas. “I had been hoping that you would fill her place, Michael, but I can see you aren’t ready for even that yet. Security, put Reed in my car. I will take care of this myself.”

  But the sound of Michael’s weapon cocking stopped everyone, and the half-mad look in his eye kept them unmoving. “After I finish talking to her,” Michael said. “You should be pleased. I’m thinking for myself, ma’am, just as you suggested.”

  Irritation flickered over Helen. “No one shoot him. You understand me?” Helen pushed forward, seeing as he was aiming at the men, not her. “What did she tell you? Lies to manipulate you into making a mistake, I’m sure.”

  Peri’s lip curled up. This was the person behind everything Bill had done to her. It had taken two years, but she’d found her. “I told him nothing,” Peri said. “You did this yourself by suspending the program after promising to accelerate him. You really think you can string one of us along, then fail to make good on a promise and live to complain about it when we force the issue?” Peri said bitterly. “As much as we hate each other, we share a common thread you will never comprehend.”

  Helen went white as she reassessed Michael’s smug satisfaction. “Accelerated,” she breathed, her eyes dropping to the used syringe. “What did you do?”

  Peri had delayed long enough. Even if someone drafted now, they couldn’t erase the past. Michael was accelerated. Catching Michael’s eye, she tapped her wrist. Michael smirked. “It’s done,” she said, and Helen flushed, livid.

  “I told you to wait!” Helen exclaimed.

  Silas took Peri’s arm, trying to get her to back up with him. “Ready or not, here he comes,” Peri said. “And you’re stuck with him. I’m out of here.”

  “Dart him!” Helen shouted, and Peri gasped as everyone moved. “Both of them!”

  Peri flung herself at the floor, but she never hit as the air was suddenly flooded with blue sparkles. The world froze for an instant: Silas’s worry, Michael’s satisfaction, Helen’s ugly expression as she pointed . . . and the dart gun being raised a half second too slow.

  And then Michael breathed them all in, resetting the world.

  Peri stumbled, putting a hand to her middle as vertigo flashed and was gone. Her head throbbed, and she almost passed out as Michael pushed her farther back in time than she could manage on her own. I’m still by the lab bench, she thought, looking at the monitor where Helen was coming through the building, her security in tow. He’d have to take the accelerator again so he wouldn’t rub it out, but even as she thought it, Michael shot up with it and threw the empty syringe into a corner. Grinning, he used the handgun to motion them to the door.

  “Out. Now,” he demanded, and when neither
of them moved, he shot the floor. On the monitors, men began running. “Now!” Michael shouted. “Or the next one will be in Denier!”

  Silas took her elbow and dragged her to the door. “This isn’t going to end well,” he whispered as they hustled into the hallway.

  “Stairwell!” Michael demanded, and Silas made a fist and hit the fire alarm.

  Alarms started honking. Michael pulled the gun up to shoot him, and Silas stepped into it, expression twisted as he got in Michael’s face. “I shut down the elevators, you idiot!” Silas exclaimed, toe to toe with Michael. “If we’re lucky, they are stuck between floors, and if not, they’ll have to use the stairs, too.” Silas yanked the door to the stairwell open. “Dumb-ass,” he muttered, pushing Peri in. He hustled her down the steps, turning to look behind him. “Think you can jam that door, string bean?”

  “You need to shut up,” Michael said, but he was breaking the fire hose station for the ax.

  “When did you become so good at this?” Peri said, and Silas bent close.

  “When the draft ends, we have to get out of here,” he whispered.

  “Isn’t that the point?” Peri asked.

  Silas yanked her back out of the way as Michael ran past them. “I made the pill for you, Peri,” Silas said as Michael shot out the lock on the second-story landing. “No buffers, just the addictive properties. He’s going to MEP thirty seconds after the draft ends.”

  “Like I said, isn’t that the point?” she whispered, shoving the guilt down. That she was going to kill Michael didn’t bother her as much as she was going to do it using his desire—a desire they both shared.

  Silas grimaced. “Who do you think he trusts more? You or Helen? He’s going to kill you.”

  Peri pinched the bridge of her nose, tired. But Silas was right. The man wouldn’t go down easy. He’d retain the ability to act for a while, time when she’d be vulnerable as the focus of his feelings of betrayal. She was going to forget, but Michael . . . he wasn’t. And she could use that.