The Drafter

  Stress pulled his shoulders up as the twin glass doors, their e-boards flickering with the week’s specials, slid open. Breath held, Silas strode out of the shadows. “We need to talk.”

  Allen’s head snapped up, his brief shock making Silas smile. “Jeez, Silas. You gave me a heart attack.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “What are you doing?”

  “Avoiding the bugs in your car,” he said, shoving Allen to the shadows and pulling his gun out. “And deciding if I should pop you or not,” he added when Allen’s back hit the brick. “She could have killed me!”

  Unperturbed, Allen looked past Silas’s weapon to the rain-emptied parking lot. “You should get some sleep. You look like hell,” he said, the bag with the cat food crackling in his grip as he started for the lot. Silas shoved him into the shadows again, and Allen looked up, peeved. “If she didn’t shoot you the first second she saw you, she wasn’t going to,” he said tightly.

  Silas’s lips twisted. “I’m calling it. You’re going to help me pull her out. Now. Tonight.”

  Allen’s disgust snapped to disbelief. “I wasn’t going to let her kill you!”

  “This isn’t about her pointing a gun at me,” Silas whispered harshly, his grip on the Glock tight. “You think she’s never done that before? I’m talking about ending this. We can’t win, Allen. She’s too fractured. Tell Fran she’s clear so I can pull her out.”

  Allen’s eyes slid to the gun. Three feet away, a cold spring rain hissed down, but here it was dry and dusty. “We have a real chance at this.”

  “Chance?” Silas gestured wildly. “There was never any chance. We’re never going to get what we sent her here for. She needs to be pulled out. Fixed.”

  Allen’s focus sharpened. “Is that what this is about? Her not remembering you? Peri is not broken.”

  “You call what you made her into whole?”

  “Hey! I did what I needed to do for both of us to survive,” Allen said. “Bill trusts me. He doesn’t like me, but he trusts me. I can salvage this.”

  Dropping back, Silas sent his gaze to his gun, and then he shoved it into his pocket. “She’s falling apart.”

  “She’s fine.”

  “She remembers Jack,” Silas said, and Allen’s expression went blank.

  A woman was approaching, and Allen drew Silas deeper into the shadows. “How? There is nothing there. I’d swear to it,” he whispered.

  They were silent until the woman went in, never having seen them. Satisfaction lifted Silas’s chin. His manipulations had held, had given Peri something to find the truth with. His fix never would have lasted if she hadn’t trusted him. “I used the latent memory of Jack as a mental cop to prevent her going into MEP,” Silas said. “Sort of an interactive hallucination.”

  Allen’s lips parted. “And she knows it’s fake?”

  Silas nodded. “She does now. You can’t keep her ignorant. Your false memories are flaking away like cheap paint. She knows you’re lying to her. That’s why she sent you out here for cat food. I hope you didn’t leave anything you don’t want her to find.”

  Allen pushed his glasses back up his narrow nose. “Nothing she would be surprised at. What did you tell her?”

  “When you were out cold on the floor of Eastown?” Silas smirked. “Not much. But Jack is filling her in. Sandy had one thing right. You never forget, you just don’t remember.”

  Silas jerked when Allen poked him with a stiff finger. “My life is in the open here, not yours,” he said, eyes virulent behind his glasses. “What did you tell her about me?”

  Silas smiled bitterly. “Everything except who you work for, because I don’t know anymore. You keep saying Peri’s gone native, but you’re the one doing ugly things. I don’t even remember why we agreed to this.”

  Uneasy, Allen shifted the grocery bag closer. “Because she was going to do it with or without us. Hell, Silas. You don’t have to scare me. I’m scared enough already. I watched her fight what Opti did to her, is still doing. I had to remind myself she agreed to it when she was screaming at me, threatening to kill me. It took three weeks to turn her from a raving knot of defiance to what you saw walk into Eastown, and she’s still shaky. You think I liked that?”

  Silas stiffened. “She’s everything you ever wanted. Proud of yourself?”

  Allen’s lip curled. “Will you get off your pity pony. There is nothing more I’d like to do than call Fran and tell her Peri is with us a hundred percent, but I can’t tell where her loyalties are. I can’t give her the green to come in. She likes who she is—a little too much.”

  “You like what she is.”

  “Shut up and listen to me. I’m telling you she likes who she is. I don’t care if she’s fighting it, she likes the power and ability, the status that Opti gives her. The feeling of superiority after every task. She enjoyed what she did with Jack, enjoyed it to the point where she ignored the lies and obvious incongruities until they were rubbed in her face. That’s why they keep scrubbing her and starting over. She likes it. They know it. And that’s why that Jack construct is still there. She won’t let herself forget.”

  Silas backed up until a pylon hit his back. “She agreed to help the alliance fast enough.”

  “Which is the only reason I’m continuing with this farce. That, and we’re in the best position we’ve been in for the last five years. You think I enjoyed stripping her down to nothing? Listening to her rave at me? Knowing I deserved it? She knew this might happen, and she agreed to it, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Her core hasn’t changed. But how she expresses it has.”

  Silas thought of the gun in his pocket, remembered the fear and determination in her eyes when she faced him across the stage and rediscovered how badly her world was messed up. “That’s why I want to pull her out.”

  “We can’t.” Allen’s eyes caught the overhead glow of the store’s OPEN sign. “If we pull her out before it’s done, the alliance will never trust her. She’s gone too deep, becoming what she needed to be in order to survive. She has to give us Opti on a platter before anyone in the alliance will trust her to resume her full responsibilities. She either sees it to the end and makes the decision to side with the alliance—with her still oblivious about her beginnings—or she goes down with Opti. That goes for you, too.”

  “Me!”

  Allen’s chin lifted in anger. “Peri got a few points for freeing you, but you didn’t take her back to the alliance. You ran off with her and the daughter of the head of the alliance, not to mention their best cleaner.”

  “So she could finish it,” Silas said, remembering his fruitless conversations with Fran.

  “Is that what you told Fran?” Allen said mockingly. “She buying it? All they see is you not doing what they sent you to do.”

  Silas’s head thumped back against the hard brick. He had refused to bring Peri in as a traitor, yes, and now the alliance suspected him as well.

  “You lost your cred.” Allen glanced at the storefront and then the damp parking lot. “The alliance trusts me more than you. And unlike me, you don’t have a golden parachute.”

  “Got this all figured out, huh?”

  “Yup.” He nodded, infuriating Silas. “You need to find another way. That list you set your sights on is gone. They couldn’t find the chip, so they torched her apartment.”

  “You son of a bitch,” Silas whispered. “You knew that was her ticket out. How could you let them burn it?”

  “Let go of me,” Allen said coldly, and Silas pushed the smaller man back, only then realizing he’d grabbed Allen’s coat. “She can still clear her name,” Allen said as he shifted his shoulders to get his coat straight. “It doesn’t change anything.”

  “She gave her life for this,” Silas said softly, not knowing how to help her anymore.

  “We all did,” Allen said flatly.

  Silas’s jaw clenched. To pull her out now would destroy her reputation and her future. He had no choice but to see it through, possible MEP or
not. Son of a bitch. He hated feeling helpless. “She’s going to kill you before this is over, Allen.” And if she doesn’t, I will.

  “Maybe I deserve it,” Allen said.

  Silent, Silas turned and walked away, hands in his pockets and his head down against the light rain. “You think I’m misjudging our chances?” Allen said, but Silas kept going. “You think I’d risk her life like this if I didn’t think I could save her?”

  But Silas hadn’t been a coward for leaving Opti when Allen had continued as a double agent. He’d been a realist.

  “I listened to you, Silas, now listen to me!” Allen shouted, and then more calmly, “Bill, before you have a cow for me leaving Peri alone, just listen. I’m at the store. She sent me out for cat food so she could search the place. I thought it might make her feel better, so I left.”

  Silas jerked to a halt and spun. Allen stood in the rain under the humming security light, cat food at his feet and phone to his ear.

  “I don’t mind her looking around,” Allen said as Silas returned. “She’ll relax more if she feels in control. Besides, I wanted to get out so I could talk to you. I have a doubt.”

  “About what?” Allen had angled the phone so Silas could hear Bill, his usually flamboyant voice flat through the tiny speaker.

  It wasn’t an inquiry, more of a suspicious warning.

  “Ah, the memories your team implanted,” Allen said. “I don’t think they’re holding.”

  “So get in there and tweak them,” Bill demanded. “Did you think it would be easy?”

  “Bill,” Allen said, but Bill wasn’t done yet.

  “Sandy says it’s your attitude that is holding her back, and I’m tending to agree. Grow a pair, will you? I need you both in the field by next month.”

  “So sorry we’re interfering with your bottom line,” Allen said tightly, and Silas’s mistrust flared. “Sandy was never hurt by her.”

  “Yes she was,” Bill countered.

  “That knife throw didn’t even hit her. Besides, Sandy isn’t sleeping with the bitch.”

  “And if you were, this might not be happening,” Bill said, shocking Silas. “Get back to your apartment. It sounds as if she’s taking the place apart, talking nonsense to her cat.”

  Silas met Allen’s gaze. She wasn’t talking to the cat. She was talking to Jack. “Look, I understand the closure she’d get by killing Silas,” Allen said, “but seeing him might have jiggled something loose. She doesn’t trust me.”

  “Do you blame her?” Bill said, his voice mocking. “I think it’s a reasonable reaction. Silas’s team came back. Interrupted her. She’s right that your intel sucked. Maybe you’re not up to her standards.”

  “The hell with you,” Allen said, his anger too hot to be faked. “I didn’t ask for this job.”

  “No. You only mishandled it so badly that you had to take it. Make it work. Get some ice cream and strawberries. She’s a woman, Allen. Treat her like one. There’s nothing wrong with her that a good screw won’t fix.”

  Expression ugly, Allen ended the call and shoved his phone away. “Still think I don’t know what I’m doing?” he said bitterly. “Bill trusts me. That Peri doesn’t is exactly why he does. I’m doing my job, so don’t tell me you’re ending it when I’m the one with the riskier, harder task here. Got it?”

  Silas looked beyond him and into their past. “How much of that was a lie?”

  Allen picked up the cat food. “If you’re asking if I’m sleeping with her, I’m not.”

  Silas let that settle, not liking that it meant so much to him. “I’ll give you two weeks.”

  “You’ll give me? You are not in charge, Silas. I am.”

  Silas’s fingers found the gun in his pocket, and he jerked back. “She’s too close to a MEP. If this doesn’t break in two weeks, I pull her out. I don’t care if the alliance shuns her, ignores her, or puts a hit on her,” he said as Allen frowned, knowing the threat was real. “Two weeks.”

  Turning, Silas stomped away into the rain.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  Allen’s apartment was as much to Peri’s liking as the things now hanging in her side of the closet, both a mishmash of colors and textures that had her wondering if Allen was color-blind. Somehow the professional polish exuded by his clothing had failed to make it to his decorating style. Maybe he was just eclectic in his taste.

  Sighing, Peri sat on the leather ottoman before the gas log fireplace, Carnac on her lap as she watched an insurance commercial. She couldn’t help but admire the Band-Aid-strewn guy on TV catching the kitchen drapes on fire when the homeowner tried to relight the pilot light with a match. He was having fun creating destruction with no thought of the consequences. Maybe she needed to be more like him.

  The bell on Carnac’s collar pinged as her nail hit it, and the cat jumped, his claws digging into her leg. He was jittery from having been jammed in a box for the trip over here. It was either that, or the garish, modern art paintings of blocks of color were getting to him, too.

  Most of her stuff was still at her old apartment, and if things didn’t improve fast, she was going to grab her toothbrush and her cat, and go home. The more time she put between her and the doubts that Silas had instilled, the more foolish and unlikely they seemed. If not for Jack, currently standing at her box of talismans beside the empty shelf, she might be doubting herself.

  Maybe this is the first stages of MEP.

  As if her thoughts had stimulated the hallucination, Jack turned, holding up a stuffed doll wearing a kimono. “Where, by the sweet fires of hell, did you get this?”

  “Like I know?” She stood and brushed cat hair from her. That none of the things in that box held any real meaning was grating. Allen claimed it was because they hadn’t defragmented the memories attached to them, but she had doubts—if Jack’s poking around in them meant anything. Allen had cleared the shelf above the TV for her to display them, but she didn’t have the heart for it. He’d only just left, and she was restless. The cat box had made it over here, but the cat’s food hadn’t, and so he’d gone out for some.

  Peri wandered into the kitchen, cringing when she opened the fridge; she wasn’t going to turn into Allen’s mother and start cleaning. But the sight of three pouches of cat food stopped her cold. “I thought . . . ,” she muttered, glancing at Carnac twining around her feet in the throes of starvation. “I’m sorry, Carnac. It was here all the time.”

  On the other side of the living room, Jack snickered. He was fingering a scrap of woven cloth that meant nothing to her. Now she remembered having put the pouches in there, and she grabbed one, opening a cupboard to find a saucer. The lapse wasn’t like her, and uneasy, she put the remaining cat food in the pantry where it belonged.

  “Give me a sec,” she protested as she tore one open. The cat jumped onto the counter before she could put the bowl on the floor, and she laughed. “Good grief, you’re not starving,” she said as she put first the bowl, then the cat on the floor. Carnac hunched into it, ignoring her last fondle behind his ears as she arranged the collar so the hourglass pattern was obvious.

  They brought my knitting over, she thought, seeing the canvas bag beside the couch, and then she remembered telling Allen she was going to finish the scarf this weekend. “Why did I put the cat food in the fridge?” she said as she plopped on the couch.

  Jack walked between her and the fireplace, startling her. “How else would you get Allen out of the apartment? Anything but cat food could wait until morning.” He shuffled in her box of talismans. “He’s driving you nuts.”

  She shrugged, liking Jack’s idea better than the thought that she was so stressed she was gaslighting herself. “Yeah?” she muttered, wondering if the place was bugged. Maybe she should stop talking to Jack. Jack, can you still hear me? she thought.

  “No,” he said, confusing her. “Come look at this. You think this is real, or something Bill’s wife picked up at a yard sale?”

  “Oh. My. God. Ta
lk about pegging your ugly meter.” Peri levered herself up, becoming increasingly comfortable with the hallucination. Silas had said Jack betrayed her, but how could she be angry at a hallucination? What bothered her more was that Jack really wasn’t holding the seashell with the mermaid stuck to it. It was still in the box, and she didn’t want to know what kind of mental gymnastics her mind was doing to try to reconcile the difference.

  Peri wouldn’t take it until he put it down and her reality and her imagination became one. The garish thing felt dead when she picked it up. “This isn’t mine,” she said as she set it on the empty shelf. “I’d never pick something so gaudy as a talisman.”

  On sudden impulse, she pulled the picture of her and Jack out from inside her bra, unfolding it and propping it up against the shell. A slow smile crossed her face, and Jack put his hands into his pants pockets, rocking from heel to toe in satisfaction as they looked at it together. It felt right, but her smile faded as she recalled Howard and . . . Taf, was it? She hadn’t remembered them, though it was obvious they remembered her. Taf, especially, seemed hurt that she’d forgotten them.

  “It’s okay, babe,” Jack said as he shifted the picture so the crease down the middle wasn’t so obvious. “You’re too tense to remember what day it is. I used to have to wait almost twelve hours after you drafted before I could bring anything back. This is normal.”

  He wasn’t really there, but it was comforting anyway. Maybe all it took was time.