Charcoal Worsted grabbed my arm. “Enough, or the next bing will be me calling security.”
Floor nineteen proved to be the one.
I was glad it wasn’t one of the lower ones, because each time the door slid open, the rest of the passengers got angrier and angrier. Charcoal Worsted had taken to jabbing the door-close button before the door had finished opening: a move that might have felt satisfying, but did nothing to speed our progress.
By the time we reached floor nineteen, my stomach was very much in rebellion and my head already starting to spin. Why hadn’t I eaten something before trying this nonsense?
Luckily, checking each stop for flies had become nearly automatic. All day long, I’d been studying the elevator lobbies, trying to figure out where I would put bugs if they were mine. Especially if I was limited to Musca domestica, gene-modified or otherwise. Houseflies are great for surveillance, but if people see too many, they tend to react.
But I’d forgotten what it meant for Perkins to have an entire floor to himself. Jerret hadn’t shown the greatest subtlety in the way he’d stalked Cora, but now, with no need for it at all, he’d planted several dozen flies on the ceiling, fanned out to give plenty of angles into each elevator’s interior. It was arrogant, the implicit assumption of someone who felt like king, in the country of the blind. Though even if people noticed, how many would have a clue what it meant?
Charcoal Worsted muttered and again jabbed the close-door button, this time after the door had finished opening. Five seconds later, it was safely closed. I now knew where Jerret was. Hopefully, he didn’t know I knew.
Maybe it was the beer, but suddenly, I felt all the emotions I’d been cultivating strike with renewed force. Still, I was extremely happy I’d changed the plan. With that many flies scanning me, I doubt my fake-psychopath demeanor would have held up. Jerret might not have known exactly what was up, but he’d have smelled something.
By the time we reached the lounge, I was definitely buzzed. Denise stomped out, but I reached forward, took her arm. Forget the elbow squeeze. I needed to talk now, save what I could of our relationship. If I could.
“Floor nineteen,” I said. “That’s definitely it.” My stomach lurched. “I’ll tell you more in a minute. First, I need to throw up.”
Clearer-headed, I joined her and Laurel a few minutes later at a tiny table with a to-die-for view of the lakeshore. No flies. I looked, but Jerret wouldn’t dare invade this place. He’d get swatted for sure.
Denise was still angry. Laurel was working at some kind of straw-colored drink, no ice. Denise was sitting on a leather couch big enough for two, but she wouldn’t move over, so I sat next to Laurel.
“So that was all some kind a game?” Denise asked, even before I was fully settled. “First you want to be the big hero, charging off while I stay home—just like old days. Then, when I won’t let you, not again, not when its our daughter’s life that’s at stake, you pull this, this stunt, and make me think you don’t even care—treat me like… like, like a damn Army wife. Not a real one: the imaginary kind. The kind they tell you you should be, but who’s not really a person. A woman whose only role is to say, ‘Yes, I understand,’ ‘Yes, I’ll do what they tell me,’ ‘Yes, I’ll stand behind you,’ ‘Yes, I’ll be everything you need and never ask anything for myself.’ Yes, yes, yes, because… because you’re the one who’s always almost dying, and compared to that, what the hell difference do I make?”
Laurel started to rise. “Maybe I should meet you in the—”
“No, you stay here. You’re as much a part of this as he is. What did he do? Explain it all to you when he wouldn’t to me?”
She shook her head, but dropped back into her seat. Held up a finger to a waiter, pointed to her glass. “No. I just live a little closer to the world he comes from.” She looked at me. “The offer’s still open, you know. Once the big police forces get in the act, we’re going to have to train undercover agents. And in the interim… we probably need to keep a better eye on our subcontractors.”
This time, I didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
“I figured, but I’d be remiss in my job not to ask.” The waiter was back, with a second whatever-it-was. She nodded, handed him a bill, waved off the change. “And I’m good at my job. Very good. When we go public, I’ll be worth millions.” She stirred her drink, stared at it, stirred again. “Then, if I’m smart, I’ll get out, retire at thirty-five. If not… well, at least my father would be proud.” She took a swallow. Made a face. Took another swallow. “He made his first million in some damn dotcom before he was twenty-five. I don’t even remember what it was called. Lost it all two years later. Spent his whole life trying to get it back.” She stared some more into her drink. “Drank himself to death by the time I was in high school.”
She was looking at me now, her eyes so dark they were almost black. “You don’t think I didn’t figure all of this out? Shit, this whole situation just reeks of what I grew up with. Dotcoms? Military? It’s all the same. You get that daughter of yours back, you treat her right, do you understand me?” She drained the rest of her drink in a single gulp, rose, then turned one final time to Denise. “And all that stuff on the elevator? It’s because he knows you. You’d have given the whole show away simply by caring, like a normal person.” She snatched her purse, and for a moment, I saw a glint of moisture in her eyes. “See you at the hotel.”
The rescue plan was something we’d worked out two days earlier. When I woke the next morning, it looked just as risky as before—but neither had any new alternative magically materialized.
This time, Laurel had booked us separate rooms, but Denise and I had spent much of the evening in one of them, not holding each other, but talking like we hadn’t in years. It wasn’t just psychotics and sociopaths whose motivations could evade the Sense. Deeply suppressed feelings could do it, too, I was beginning to realize. When we’d married, the Corps was a presumed part of our lives. I’d never understood how much she’d come to resent it.
Laurel was the first to knock at my door, holding a nylon bag with a flat, angular shape inside.
“What’s this?”
“What’s it look like?”
I took the bag, but didn’t open it. “We talked about this.”
“And if it comes down to him or you?”
“That won’t happen.”
“Him or your daughter?”
Reluctantly, I opened the bag. Pulled out a 9mm Beretta…
…and suddenly was back in the market.
Flashback, hallucination, or phantom eye? If there’s a single flashback that dominates all others, this is the one.
You do not want to shoot somebody when you have the Sense turned on them, full-power. You feel the impact, watch the life drain away. Even sociopaths know pain, fear the darkness.
The whole thing lasted perhaps three, four seconds. I’d seen the man in the sheepskin coat reach inside his jacket, Sensed the sudden pleasure. Knew it was him or me…
Or maybe he was just reaching for a love letter from his girlfriend.
For two, maybe three seconds, I didn’t care. Three wild, unaimed shots, and he was down, the market suddenly still. Somehow, my sidearm was in my hand—my rifle still slung over my shoulder because, no matter how good you are at bifurcation, there’s always a risk of losing perspective and thinking you’re shooting from the position of one of your insects. Better to keep the rifle slung unless you consciously decide you need it.