I fall back onto the sofa, my vision narrowing to a small circle surrounded by black. For several seconds that’s all I can see. When my sight finally returns, Kane is at the base of the stairs pushing Iffy up.
I try to rise for a third time, but Leonard grabs my leg and gives it a quick squeeze. The tortured yell that flies from my throat is quickly muffled by Leonard’s meaty palm slapping down across my mouth.
“Shut up and stay there.” These are the first words he’s said. His voice is gravely but more tenor than I would have expected.
When my rapid breaths finally start to slow, Lidia nods at Leonard, and he removes his hand from my face.
“I don’t know what happened to you,” she says, nodding at my leg, “but you might want to have a doctor take a look at it.”
The bloodstain has nearly doubled in size since Leonard hit me, and is damp enough to glisten in the light. Though I can’t see the wound, I’m sure several of my stitches have broken.
I level my gaze at Lidia. “If anything happens to Iffy, you will pay for it.”
“That’s her name,” she says, looking relieved. “Iffy. Should have remembered that.” She leans forward. “What happens to your girlfriend is up to you. Help me, and she’ll be fine. Don’t, and, well…” The mad glint returns to her eyes with a vengeance. “Here’s what’s going to happen. First, you’re going to fix my chaser so it works for me again.”
When she doesn’t immediately go on, I say, “And then what?”
“And then the fun begins.”
My chest tightens when Kane comes downstairs without Iffy. Following Lidia’s instructions, he retrieves the two chasers and sets them on the coffee table in front of her and then moves over next to Leonard.
Though he’s trying to look tough, I sense that he’s preoccupied. Leonard, on the other hand, is focused entirely on me. I doubt I could get an inch off the cushion before he batted me down again.
Lidia picks up one of the boxes. From the nick at the top, I know it’s the one that I’ve been using these past few months, the one that used to be hers. Which makes the other device my original chaser.
“How much power does it have left?” she asks.
I don’t respond.
She huffs out an annoyed breath. “The way this works is that if you answer my questions, I don’t send Leonard upstairs to hurt your girlfriend. Simple enough?”
I notice Kane glance at Leonard, troubled. Lidia’s blood may run through the accountant, but I’m starting to think he’s found himself in a situation he didn’t expect. Unfortunately, I have a feeling the same isn’t true about Leonard, so as much as I would like to, I know I can’t ignore her question. Before I say anything, though, I see the second chaser out of the corner of my eye, and an idea comes to me that that might at least give me a chance to get the upper hand again.
“It was around seventy-five percent last time I checked,” I say.
“You’re lying. It was well below that when you stole it from me.”
As I hoped, she’s taken the bait.
“You’re right. It was lower, but I charged it.”
Her eyes narrow angrily. “How could you do that? I didn’t have a charging kit, and I know you didn’t have one, either, or you would have never let your chaser get so low.”
“Which is why I had one made.”
She stares at me. “You had one made?” She snorts a derisive laugh. “Right. No more lies. How much power is left?”
“If you don’t believe me, the charger’s in my satchel.”
She glares at me, eyes narrowing, and then motions for Leonard to give her my bag. Once she has it, she dumps the contents onto the table. I’m relieved to see that the knife in the side pouch, though, has not fallen out.
Lidia is immediately drawn to the solar-powered battery and the tangle of wires that make up RJ’s charging unit.
“This?” she says, picking it all up.
“Be careful. It’s just a prototype, so you can damage it if you don’t watch what you’re doing.”
She twists the battery around, looking at both sides, and then follows the wires until she finds the not-quite-perfected connecter at the end. It’s close enough, though, that the shape of it surprises her.
She holds it out. “Show me.”
I scoot down to the end of the sofa, near her, and she slides my original chaser toward me.
“This one first.”
The lock that holds the top flap in place utilizes a different battery than the one that powers the device, a safety precaution for situations just like this, so when I touch my thumb against the small identification screen, the flap unlocks.
As I push the lid all the way open, Lidia grabs the sides of the device, ready to snatch it away if I try anything. I open the charging port and stick RJ’s connector in. Nothing happens.
“I knew you were lying,” Lidia states.
Ignoring her, I jiggle the connector. Just as Lidia is about to make another comment, a blinking dot appears on the main screen.
“Oh,” she whispers under her breath, stunned. She watches for several seconds until the battery meter appears and begins to tick upward ever so slowly. “How long does it take to charge?”
I explain in vague terms how the system works.
“Seems inefficient,” she says.
“I’ve only had a few months to get this developed since we last saw each other. You’ve been here three years and what do you have?”
She tenses. “Do you think I haven’t tried? They still use vacuum tubes in their electronics here, for God’s sake!” She grabs the other chaser. “Open mine.”
I so want to say, “Not yours anymore. Mine.” But I keep the thought from my lips, and take the box from her.
Once the flap is open, the screen comes to life.
She studies it for a second. “Seventy-two percent. So you weren’t lying.”
Her finger brushes across the surface as if she’s afraid it might disappear at her touch. It’s a moment I’m sure she’s been waiting for since she realized the other box no longer worked. Soon, though, the wonder in her eyes turns mischievous, and she begins rapidly inputting the coordinates for a jump.
She glances up at me and sneers, then touches the go button.
For a split second I fear that the machine might have some kind of residual memory allowing it to recall its former owner and take her away from here. But like what happened when Kane tried to do the same thing, the chaser doesn’t activate.
Instead of turning angry like I expect, she shrugs. “Worth a shot. Now, how do we make it work for me?”
“It needs a sample of your blood.”
“My blood?”
“For the genetic markers,” I say. In Iffy’s world it’s called DNA.
“That’s right,” Lidia replies as if I’ve only reminded her of something she already knows. But I can tell she has no idea how the process works. “Let’s do it right now.”
“It’s not that easy. We need to prep your blood first.”
A pause. “Remind me.”
“It needs to be dry.”
She raises a skeptical eyebrow, all pretense forgotten. “Dry?”
“A couple drops on a surface that it can be scraped off of later should do it. Metal or tile would work. Leave it overnight and it’ll be ready by morning.”
She studies me for several moments before saying, “And how does this dried blood get into the chaser?”
I touch the faint outline of a rectangular panel at the bottom corner of the control surface. “Under here.”
She pushes on the spot but nothing happens. “How does it open?”
“There’s no reason to do it until your blood’s—”
“I want to see.”
I say nothing for a moment. “Okay. I’ll need something thin, like a table knife. And a metal paper clip. They have those in this time, don’t they?”