Boulder Colorado
Tuesday November 28 2006
1049 hours
Gordon Phillips took a long and unusual detour between the squadroom and his quarters, one that led through Research Directorate offices. He turned down the corridor that went past Nicole Callahan's office with some vague notion of confronting her and delivering a black warning about risking Colby's life for her pleasure. He knew that putting his face into the wind of her personality was hazardous: if she wasn't in a receptive mood, she could extinguish his anger with a whisper – or probably stop his heart at the doorway, if things escalated to that point.
But he didn't think they would. Nicole Callahan was a live bomb, and he was sure her worldview was twisted more than a little by her upbringing and her power, but she was a very functional sociopath, level-headed and easy to deal with most of the time. She might tell him it was none of his business, but she wouldn't kill him for lecturing her about her little hobby. But he still felt like he was about to enter a lion's den unarmed as he approached her door.
The door was open, a sure sign Nicole was in. He poked his head around the jamb, and what he saw was so unexpected he ducked back and almost checked the room number before he looked back inside.
Nicole sat listlessly behind her desk, chin in one hand propped up by an elbow on the desktop. The other hand was curled around her coffee mug. She was staring unseeing past her terminal at the wall beside the door striker, unmindful of Phillips' intrusion. Her usual poise and latent energy were nowhere evident; she seemed drained, worn down, absent. And … Phillips realized with a start that something else was missing as well: looking her over wasn't making him scared and horny. She was still a beautiful girl, but her eyes and body didn't pull at his mind like they usually did.
She looked up at him and offered a wan smile. "Morning, Gordon. Just getting off?"
Even though he wasn't, he nodded, all the words he'd prepared gone from his head. "You okay, Nicole?"
"Am I okay?" She stared down into her mug, as if just noticing it. She took a sip, tipping it so far back he knew it was almost empty, and made a face. "How's Frank?"
"He'll be all right, I think. I didn't think so when I first found him, but he's a tough sonofabitch. Doubt he'll make it in today, though." He stepped into her office. "Want a warmup on that?" He reached for the mug in her hand.
She hastily set it down with a clunk and snatched her hand away. "Gordon." When he stopped short, she pushed it towards him with one finger. "Are you okay? It's not like you to forget protocol."
He felt a strange moment of sympathy for this bright, beautiful girl who experienced men around the Shop treated like a leper. Then he remembered why. He picked up the mug. It still contained an inch of cold, beige-colored brew. "I don't know. You just seem different today."
"Different how?"
He shrugged. "I'm not sure. Safer, somehow." He searched for a proper descriptive, and said, almost apologetically, "Not… hungry."
A shadow of the usual cool amusement returned. "Hungry. Well. Right now, the thought of food makes me a little queasy. I feel like I was at a bachelorette party all night. Then came in early to spar with Matt before work. I can't remember ever feeling so beat up. Your boss is an animal." She looked at the cup in Gordon's hand and made a beckoning motion. Cautiously, he extended it towards her, and she took it by the rim without touching him. She took a final sip and passed it back the same way. "You remember how I take it?"
"Four creams, five sugars." He smiled and shook his head. "You drink Diet Pepsi, but you have to turn your coffee to syrup before you'll touch it."
"A cute little eccentricity, don't you think? You bring that back, and maybe we'll talk a little before I report to my boss."
…
Nicole parted the conference room doors and marched down the length of the glossy black table to where Ivana sat waiting. "Mission accomplished. I delivered your bonus, as ordered."
The Chief Director of International Operations looked up from her laptop and closed it. "Don't take that tone with me, dear. I'm sure it was no great imposition, and besides, it was just a suggestion."
Nicole set her full mug on the table, slopping a little to form a ring underneath. "Mother, I've never mistaken one of your orders for a suggestion."
She knew, of course, that Ivana Baiul wasn't her biological mother; probably hadn't even slept with her father, though of course one couldn't be sure. But Nicole Callahan's most powerful childhood memory, from when she was six years old, was of the door of that horrible scary place finally opening, and stumbling, naked and terrified, into this woman's arms and being borne away amid the shrieking alarms.
She knew now that the circumstances of that 'rescue' were very different from what she'd imagined as a child. But, looking at her boss now, Nicole could vividly recall her first scent of Ivana's perfume – not the one she wore now – and the woman stooping to reach for her as if little Nikki was a treasure she'd been searching for all her life. Strong arms around her, lifting, and she'd wrapped arms around Ivana's neck and clung. The woman's voice cooing assurances as she'd carried the child past the dead men on the floor.
Ivana Baiul had been Nicole's source of comfort and order for as long as she could remember. Nicole supposed they even loved each other, in a careful and limited sort of way. In a softer tone she said, "But you're right about it being no imposition. I had my doubts at first, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable night."
The Director's sculpted eyebrows lifted. "You spent the night? Is he…"
She sat in one of the big black-leather chairs. "Hardly. He's weak, but he'll recover."
"It's good you went so easy on him. I was a little concerned when I thought you were just going to give him an hour of your time. If I had known you were going to do such a thorough job, I'd have warned you more sternly against using him up."
"Hm." Nicole picked up her mug in both hands and sipped from it.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What was he like?"
Nicole felt her eyebrows gather. "Are you asking me…"
"I suppose I am. Just curious."
Oh, Mother. As if you'd touch a man I've been with. You look at them like they're spoiled meat. "Unusual."
"Unusual."
"He's very resistant for a non-Special. And once he succumbed, he … didn't treat me like other men." She sipped again and held the mug to her lips, letting the silence stretch, oddly reluctant to go on.
"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, Nikki. But you're not acting yourself either. Did something happen?"
"Of course something happened." She set the cup down, startled by her reaction. Now you have to tell her. Right now, before she decides you need fixing. "He took me completely by surprise. He's in much better shape than that wheelchair would lead you to think. He was actually a little rough with me. That's happened before, but I didn't expect it last night, not with him. It was different. I liked it, and I wanted more. I realized I was pushing him harder than I'd planned. I tried to back off, but he kept…" She struggled for a word. "Challenging me."
"Challenging you."
"I could tell I was hurting him, but he just kept taking it, taking me, and I couldn't stop. I had to… sort of hold him back instead, to keep him from… until I barely felt in control of myself. It wore me out. That's why I'm not feeling well today, I think."
"You said it was an enjoyable night."
She stared into her cup. "The sex was very good. And he was good to me afterward. That doesn't happen often. I liked it, a lot. The exhaustion didn't hit me until after it was over." She took another sip. "I'm … sort of considering a rematch."
Ivana's eyebrows lifted. Nicole had never indulged in a second night with anyone, being sure that the risk to the man would be far greater on a second encounter. There was no need when there were plenty of untried males to choose from. "Nicole, be careful. He's still very useful. I don't want to lose him."
"You told me that yesterday. Have I ever failed you?"
"Once." Ivana leaned forward. "You never explained your failure to seduce Jack's son."
"Yes I did. He's immune, like his father. I couldn't get anywhere with him."
"Nicole, do you own a mirror?"
She set her mug down with a thump. "Every girl in school had looks enough to lure him. And my power put me at a complete disadvantage."
"Disadvantage?"
Nicole wobbled her head from side to side in frustration. "What do I know about the whole silly mating dance? I see a man I want, I call to him, he comes to me. End of courtship. Every girl at Darwin was a more accomplished flirt than I am. But Bobby never showed more than casual interest in any of them until Sarah came to school."
"How did that make you feel, watching him moon after your half-sister after you'd failed with him? Especially when she didn't want him?"
"It made me sure that boys are morons about sex, and grateful I didn't have to learn how to handle them the way other girls did." She wrapped her hands around her mug and looked into it. "Well, maybe it bothered me a little. But the way Matt watched over her bothered me more. I've never seen him like that with any girl but me."
"It made you jealous?"
"It made me nervous. She has a power over men that doesn't come from I/S Effect. Maybe it's the challenge of a woman they can't have that pulls them to her, I don't know. But it could be dangerous." She sipped at her mug. "I thought I had Bobby once, before she showed up. But I must have said or done something. His interest cooled like that-" she snapped her fingers "-and I never got a better shot. Do we have any pictures of Frank at twenty?"
Ivana drew her eyebrows together at the apparent change of subject. "There ought to be something in his dossier. He'd likely be in his Army uniform. Why?"
"Because I'd like to see if the resemblance to Bobby is real or in my head. He was Uncle Jack's favorite, right?"
"Yes, and they are similar. But Jack was Frank's friend and mentor years before he found his son and knew what Bobby looked like. Coincidence."
"Or the result of factors beyond our present understanding, as Dr. Ivery says." She turned the nearly-empty mug in her hands. "Maybe I'm drawn to him because he represents a sort of second chance at the one who got away. I wouldn't like that." She pushed the mug away. "People think I'm some heartless black widow, I know. But I have feelings. I like men. I like what they do for me in bed, but I like them as people too. I sleep around, but that's more for their protection than anything else. It's dangerous for me to like one man too much.
"A year ago, I was people-watching at some mall in Minnesota, and this twenty-something couple walking down the aisle passed me by. Only, they weren't really a couple. The man was loaded down with shopping bags from women's stores, walking three steps behind her like a slave. She was yapping away on her celly, not even looking back at the poor man. He tried to ask her something, and she screwed up her face and flapped her hand at him to shut him up without even pausing her phone conversation. I felt so sorry for him. It was obvious he was nothing to her, that he hadn't gotten a moment's pleasure from her company in years."
She picked up her mug and drained it. "I sometimes wonder how long she kept walking down that corridor before she noticed he wasn't following, and whether she backtracked in time to find her bags where he dropped them on the floor."
"I wonder what kind of explanation he gave her when he got home."
"He never got home, actually."
"Oh. Like that?"
She stood and pushed her chair in. "I tried a little too hard to make him happy. It was for the best that way, don't you think?" She turned for the door.
"Nicole."
She turned back. Ivana looked at her over steepled fingers. "What does it feel like, when that happens?"
It occurred to Nicole that a witness might have thought the Director's question incredibly insensitive. But she and Ivana knew each other better than that. But the question was difficult to answer, just the same.
She found herself in a quandary familiar to any Special who tried to explain the sensory perceptions associated with the use of his power, especially to a 'normal' with no similar experience to compare it to. She had never been able to satisfactorily describe the life force she could sense in people, or how it seemed to reach for her whenever she got close. How could she tell anyone what it was like to coax - or force – a man far past what he could safely share using the most intense sexual experience of his life, to sense that soul-numbing pleasure squeezing the life force from him like paint from a tube? To feel that strange light inside him, that she could somehow sense but not see, swell unbearably and then stream into her, leaving behind a dark empty husk sighing out its final breath? Filling her and illuminating her from the inside out, and then bursting like fireworks inside her and disappearing to God knows where?
"Incredible," she told Ivana. "Orgasm can't compare."
Friday June 27 2003
Darwin Academy
Robert Lane knocked on the frame of the open door and poked his head in to look at the girl behind the desk. "Miss Callahan?"
The Dean of Women wrinkled her nose, smiling. "Ecch. You've got to promise me you won't call me 'Miss Callahan' ever again, Mister Lane. It sounds like a name for a spinster schoolteacher or something. I'm Nicole, kay?"
"Kay, Nicole." He offered her a smile of his own, and stepped in. "And I'm Bobby. I know it sounds stupid, but I'm used to it."
"It doesn't sound stupid at all." The smile changed in a way that made Bobby feel warm and welcome past mere politeness. "I think it shows you're not insecure. And why should you be? Who'd mistake you for a little boy?" She stood and rounded the desk, then leaned her butt against it with her hands gripping the edge, giving him a good look at her.
Bobby swallowed. He'd only been here for a week, and hadn't got to know too many people. His pod was more than half empty, presently housing just him and two girls, who were also the only other occupants of his classroom. Bobby had met a few people from the other pods at lunch and after classes, though, and he'd already heard some awestruck comments about Nicole Callahan. He saw that the guys who'd described her hadn't exaggerated. She made school-issue coveralls look very, very good.
"Speaking of which," she went on, "happy sixteenth. It's Tuesday, isn't it? July first?"
"Wow. You know everybody's birthdays?"
"I'm trying. I've got all the girls down, now I'm working on the boys. Things like that are important to people, after all, and remembering makes them feel like they belong." Her eyelashes drooped. "Don't you agree?"
Even though he didn't, he found himself nodding. "Not really sure of the date, actually. It was just the doctor's best guess. I'm a foundling."
"In that case, maybe you should opt for July fourth instead. Celebrate with everybody else."
He shrugged. "Don't celebrate it, usually. Just a day." He liked the way she'd taken his statement about being a foundling in stride and run with it instead of offering him false sympathy.
"You're turning sixteen next week." She folded her arms, pushing her breasts up and almost out of her coverall. He couldn't help glancing at the tab of her zipper, which was pulled down so low it seemed impossible that her bra wasn't showing. "That's something to celebrate. Worth a couple of presents, at least."
He cleared his throat. "What was it you wanted to see me about?"
She smiled. "Nothing big, Bobby. We just like to have a little chat with each new student once you've had a week to settle in, just to see how you're doing. You're Matt's job, really, but he's got a ton of other stuff to do right now, so I offered to interview a few of the boys."
Bobby nodded again. "Well, hey, I'm doing great. Caitlin and Roxanne are a lot brainier than I am, but Mister Carew and the others make sure I don't get left behind." He didn't mention how much sleep that effort was costing him, or how far behind he'd started from. Matt, Nicole's brother and the Dean of Men, had told him another boy and girl would be arriving to join his pod shortly; maybe they'd bring down the curve a little and slow the pace. "Caitlin's helping me a lot, too."
"Good. I'm sure you'll catch right up before long. Are you getting along with the other kids in school?"
He put on a smile. "The ones I've met are great." Haven't gotten into a fistfight with any of them yet.
"How about the girls in your pod?" Her voice turned teasing. "Have they noticed you're a guy?"
Her voice was pleasing and kind of musical and strangely familiar, almost as if he'd heard it before. His smile widened and became real. "Hope not. If Kat notices I'm a guy, she might stop talking to me. And I don't think any guy could keep up with Rox." That's it. Her voice reminds me of Rox. Not the same pitch, but they both turn ordinary talk into music.
"Think either of them will throw you a party?"
He shrugged. "Like I said, I don't, really."
"Hm." She regarded him, the corners of her lips curving up. Her appraisal made him feel self-conscious and kind of… expectant. "Bobby, let me take you to dinner tonight. An early birthday present."
"Take me to dinner? I thought…"
She chuckled. "You're right, there's not a restaurant within a day's walk. But faculty and staff quarters has its own dining room. The food's the same, but the ambiance is more like a real restaurant. Dinner doesn't sound like feeding time at the zoo. We could take a table in the corner and eat in peace and quiet, just the two of us."
He swallowed. A dinner date with Nicole Callahan. "Wouldn't that be against the rules?"
"There aren't any rules about students dating staff." She grinned. "I should know. Matt and I would be the ones to write them. And I'm sure Dean Hardesty doesn't care so long as studies don't suffer. We're only talking about sharing a meal, after all. Teachers eat in the student cafeteria, don't they?" She cocked her head. "If you're thinking being seen together might start talk…." She seemed to have an idea. "You know, we could just eat at my place, if you want more privacy. My quarters are three rooms, about the size of a hotel suite or a small apartment. I've got a little two-seat table in one corner. Sometimes I take a meal there when I'm feeling solitary. The commissary delivers to staff quarters if you ask nicely."
Bobby wasn't in the habit of dating girls he didn't know well, but, even discounting her looks, Nicole was easy to like, and a hard person to say 'no' to. And if word got out among the guys here that he'd turned down a Friday-night offer of dinner alone in Nicole's room, the hazing might never end. "Well, I…"
A deep chime sounded behind him. His attention turned to a big grandfather clock standing against the wall next to the door; he hadn't noticed it when he'd stepped in because his eyes had already been full of Nicole. It looked like an antique, with elaborate carvings on the dark wood cabinet that made it resemble a Greek temple, and a brass face with intricate details that looked hand-painted. Underneath, behind a tall glass pane, a fancy brass pendulum swung back and forth in front of an assortment of chime tubes. A pair of weights fashioned to resemble pine cones hung from chains of unequal length. "Nice clock," he said, as it continued to strike four in its deep metallic voice.
Nicole nodded, smiling. "Like it? It's a Walter Durfee, made in Providence for Tiffany and Company. I paid thirty thousand dollars for it at auction."
"Wow."
She passed by him to approach the clock, close enough to sense body heat and catch a whiff of her shampoo. The clock stood a foot taller than she did; she smiled up into its face. "It's beautiful, don't you think?" She touched the glass that covered the face. "Made in eighteen-ninety."
"Wow," Bobby said again. "And still running."
"I fixed it," she said, still facing it.
Something in her tone drew his eyebrows together. "Really. Wasn't working when you got it?"
"Oh, it was working just like when it was built. The hands were going around and dividing the day into hours." Her voice changed, lost its honey. "But it gained time for two weeks after you wound it, over a minute, and lost it again as the weights approached their stops. That's why you're supposed to wind it on a schedule, so you can tell how far off it is by knowing when you last wound it. Ridiculous. I looked inside at the works. It was full of little brass wheels, dozens of them, no two the same size, all running at different speeds, not even in the same direction. Stopping and starting and clicking like it was full of bugs. A complete mess. It made my head buzz to look at it. Even after I closed it up again, I could still see it. So I fixed it."
Something felt very wrong here, as if the floor had tilted a tiny bit. "Fixed it."
She nodded, still facing the clock. She touched its face again. "The hands are driven by a DC motor now, and it gets a time signal every few seconds by satellite. Millisecond accurate all the time, and doesn't need winding at all." She shook her head. "The man I hired to do the work almost begged me for the old insides, can you imagine? I broke them up with my own hands, to make sure they'd never bother anyone again." She touched the lower cabinet, the one with the weights and chimes and swinging pendulum. "All just props now. The ticking and the notes come out of a speaker. Nobody can tell the difference. It's just like before, only better. Much better."
"Nicole-"
"That's how you fix things," she said, her voice gone soft and distant. "If you want to do it right. You have to get inside and pull everything out, leave nothing behind. Then you decide what you want it to do and what you don't want it to do. You draw up a plan, the simplest design you can come up with that gets the job done, no confusing extras to make its behavior unpredictable. You can't risk that. You study every single part that came out, and if it doesn't have any place in the plan, you get rid of it. If you need it, but it looks worn or weak or unreliable in some other way, you replace it with something that performs the same function, but does it right. When you're done, you have something that's completely different than what it looks like, but it's better than the original could ever have been. That's the way to do it. You've got to."
She turned back to him, smiling brightly. "Good grief, listen to me going on about my little toy. Sorry. I promise to be more entertaining tonight. What time is good for you?"
Bobby relaxed his facial muscles, let all the expression out, giving away nothing; put on the face that had saved him from half a dozen beatings during his twelfth and thirteenth years when Mr. Grant was wound up over something and looking for a disrespectful little heathen to straighten out. "Nicole, like I said, I don't do birthdays. And I think word would get out no matter how cautious we were. I'm flattered, but no, thanks." He fought the urge to back out of the room rather than turning.
"Wait." She reached for his hand and grabbed it, staring hard into his eyes. "You don't really mean that, do you?"
"I'll kick myself later, but yeah." He tugged his hand from her grip. "Thanks for… thanks."
As he walked down the corridor to commons, he thought about that weird little exchange. He didn't know what Nicole had been talking about besides clocks, but it had raised the hairs on his neck and forearms. And by her look of utter disbelief as he had pulled his hand free and turned for the door, you'd have thought Nicole Callahan had never been turned down in her life. The girl was very hot, but she was full of herself and not right in the head. He hoped some other guy's birthday was coming up soon.
…
Boulder Colorado
Tuesday November 28 2006
1206 Hours
Frank's phone burred, dragging him out of slumber. He was surprised to find himself on the couch and dressed. Had he done that, or had Cher settled him here before she left for Central?
The phone rang again, drifting across the end table's surface as it buzzed. He picked it up, checking the time (just after noon) and the number, which wasn't in his directory. He briefly considered ignoring it, then connected. "Hello?"
"Good morning, Frank." Nicole's cheery voice raised the hair on Colby's forearms. "Feeling better yet?"
"It's afternoon," he said. "What do you want, Nicole?"
"Well, that's a fine way to talk to a girl you slept with just the night before," she said, unfazed. "What, now that you got what you wanted, you don't have to be nice anymore?"
"I'm in no mood for jokes."
"Neither am I, really," she said, voice serious now. "I think we need to talk."
"I don't. Goodbye, Nicole."
"Don't, Frank," she said, voice pitched high, almost shrill; he froze. Something about her tone made him think of a helo's threat indicator, the alarm that warned you when a missile radar was locked on. In a lower tone she went on, "If you won't talk to me on the phone, Frank, I'll come to your house. And once I'm at your door, you're going to let me in. You know that, don't you?"
His breath shortened at the thought of opening his door to find her standing there, and his hands grew warm from the memory of her. "Yeah."
Pleasant again, she said, "But if it comes to that, I don't think either of us will be in a mood to talk. So how about we just stay on the line, and be civil and rational together."
He softly let out a breath. "Okay."
"Back to my first question. Are you feeling better?"
"I can speak in complete sentences. Clearly I'm feeling better."
"Also, clearly, you're not all the way back yet, Mister Grumpy. Do you need anything?"
"Just rest, and quiet."
"I refuse to take the hint. Is Cheryl with you?"
"I don't know. I just woke up." He added, "I think she was here earlier."
"She was. I talked with Gordon. Listened to him mostly, actually. You have some very loyal people, Frank."
"He's on my bodyguard detail. It's only natural he'd be concerned with me dying on him." His grip on the phone tightened. "I did almost die, didn't I?"
"It wasn't as close as you think," she said. On her end of the line, something changed, the background or her breathing, as if she was no longer sitting but walking somewhere. "I told you, Frank, I like you. I wasn't about to risk losing you." She paused. "Well. I really was just checking in on you. I should let you get some more rest. We can talk for real later."
"Do you always do post-action surveys on your victims?"
She tittered. "Save this number in your directory, it's my personal. You'll want to call me before long." She disconnected.
IO Central HQ
Boulder
1215 Hours
Cheryl drifted through Director Colby's big office, ostensibly picking up and organizing for his return. Actually she was just drifting. Her thoughts were all about him, prompted by surroundings where they had spent so much time together, usually alone. A montage of memories and impressions filled her mind: her instant attraction to the tall blond hunk, looking so serious and thoughtful in his expensive suit and junior-executive specs as he strode past her and Ferris in the corridor during her first week at Central, before she knew who he was; her nervous excitement, sitting across a table from him in this very office when he had interviewed her for a job. Watching him work, turning over leads and going through things in his head in a way that made her believe he was thinking several things at once, his easy smile, and the confidence in the way he moved. Wondering what he would be like in bed.
Not long after Cheryl had started work for him, Frank had come up behind her while she was reviewing the Westminster Mall footage. Her breath had hitched when he had leaned over the back of her chair to share the image on her terminal. Whenever she thought of that moment, she could still smell a hint of his aftershave, and the pressure of his hand on the back of her chair, and the warmth of his cheek nearly touching hers. It was at that moment, she was certain, that she had decided that if Frank Colby ever made a pass at her, the horror stories about his prior relationships weren't going to be enough to keep her from going along with whatever he had in mind.
Cheryl paused, with her eye on the door to the office, thinking of when a gang of Ruche's security people had come unsmiling through it and gathered up Frank's computer and the contents of his desk – and her. The next several hours had been spent zip-tied naked into a chair, surrounded by silent strangers, too terrified for embarrassment. After a time, Ruche and Director Baiul themselves had come to interrogate her, and their questions had made it clear that Frank was suspected of knowing things about Lynch and his runaways that he wasn't sharing with his bosses, and that Cheryl, being his direct subordinate and a party to his investigations, was just as guilty – and less protected.
She had done her best for Frank – and for herself – answering with full honesty yet working hard to portray him as a dedicated man, utterly loyal to the organization, who simply liked to play his cards close to his vest. After a long sweaty time, the First Director and Security Advisor had left, leaving her wondering if she had managed to buy her life with her words, and hoping desperately that her statements hadn't cost Frank his.
Another interminable wait, enduring the silent stares of her guards, and then two more of Ruche's men had arrived. They had cut her free and given her a set of scrubs to wear; she had put them on as they watched, still too frightened for modesty. Then all the men had left the room, leaving her still wondering what was going to happen to her, and what had happened to Frank.
She found out twenty-four hours later. She hadn't any way of measuring the passage of time except by the state of her belly and bladder, but it seemed a very long time before the door to her holding cell opened again. Her guards, as menacing as ever, had taken her out without a word of explanation and marched her to her room, which looked like a cyclone had blown through it. "You're meeting with the Director," the man leading her escorts had said. "Get cleaned up." He had stayed with her every moment, even watching through the open bathroom door as she relieved herself, brushed her teeth and showered.
"Is this really necessary?" She had finally asked him as she wet down, standing in the tub with the curtain drawn back.
"She said to watch you every second," the man replied. "It doesn't pay to interpret the Director's orders." He added, "Your boss found that out, for sure."
A chill had gone through her. "What happened to him?"
But the man, sensing he had already said too much, had just shaken his head. "Make sure you use plenty of deodorant," he'd said. "You're going to do some sweating before this is over."
After her second meeting with Ivana Baiul, Cheryl had left the office unescorted, but feeling no less a prisoner. Ruche's sketchy account of Colby's arrest and quick return to Ivana's good graces – sketchy both ways, being suspiciously sparse and too self-serving to be trustworthy – sent her to Central's hospital wing.
She hadn't been allowed to enter his room, just observe him through a glass wall. She had needed to read the sign above the bed to be sure it was him. He had been surrounded by machines. Most of what she could see of him had been covered in casts and dressings. He looked like he had been dropped out of a helicopter from twenty feet up and then rolled down a mountainside. It seemed nothing short of a miracle that the man was still alive, and her heart had risen into her throat as she listened to the monitor beeping its steady rhythm, wondering if he would live, and what would be left of him afterward.
That feeling was very different from the chill fear that had grown inside her this morning on her return to Colby's house. She had called on her way there, but he hadn't answered. The house had been still and quiet when she had entered; he hadn't called his usual greeting, always delivered before she was ten steps inside the door. feeling uneasy, she had begun looking for him without calling for him.
His wheelchair had been sitting empty in the living room. On the floor beside it lay a pair of women's panties.
She had found him in the bedroom, but she had frozen, staring at him for what seemed like an eternity, before she could bring herself to approach and examine him. In the hospital, Frank Colby had looked like he was fighting for his life; lying crookedly in his own bed, staring blankly at the ceiling, he had looked like a corpse, and not a fresh one.
She pushed that memory aside and looked around the office, trying to orient herself and regain her balance. Her eyes lit on the 'glory wall' beside his door, adorned with photographs and a glass cabinet full of awards. She had never given it a close look, feeling somehow embarrassed to do so when her boss was in the room. Even though such shrines were usually meant for visitors to admire, its placement beside the door, where he would see it all the time as he worked but a visitor would only get a look at it when he left, had made her think that Frank meant for it not to be examined closely by anyone but himself.
The awards in the case were an odd assortment: there were a number of first- and second-place awards from Operations Directorate's annual combat skills competitions, but also a certificate mounted on a wooden plaque from some civic organization to "Officer Francis Colby." Beside it was a blurry photocopied award, a form certificate with lines for filling in the awardee's name, from 'Division Three' to Sergeant Frank 'Spookums' Colby, conferring on him, for services beyond the call of duty, the status of 'Honorary Texan,' which it seemed Frank had thought important enough to have mounted.
A pair of items mounted on blue velvet inside picture frames side by side on the bottom shelf of the cabinet caught her eye, and she bent to examine them closely: a Distinguished Service Medal and an Eagle Scout badge. She scoffed. So he really was a Boy Scout.
The pictures on the walls were a surprise as well. Normally, such a display would have photo after photo of the subject rubbing shoulders with celebrities of one stripe or another, and pics of him shaking hands with someone while they held a trophy or award between them. There was none of that; in fact, more than half the photographs didn't have Frank in them at all. Many of the scenes were strange and indecipherable, the people in them engaged in activities not immediately clear or easily recognized. She decided that these pictures stirred memories for her boss that he didn't share with strangers. She noted that there were no images of single women among Frank's mementos.
There was one notable exception, one picture near the center of the display that did show Frank in the company of a celebrity – a celebrity at International Operations, at least. Under the roof of an open shed somewhere, Frank, dressed in hunter's camo, sat loading a magazine for an M16 lying across his lap. The man sitting across from him, similarly dressed and apparently having just slapped a mag into his own rifle, was John Lynch with a patch over his left eye. She applied her investigator's eye to the two men in the picture, to their postures and facial expressions, and felt sure that they were involved in something rather more serious than a hunting trip.
Conversation between a man and woman in the anteroom just outside the office drew her attention. The first voice belonged to Will, the detached Razor who manned the desk and whose job was primarily to give anybody trying to see Frank uninvited a hard time. But he didn't sound like he was trying to chase away whoever he was talking to; in fact, his voice was deep and smooth, unusually expressive and filled with good humor, almost… flirty. Then she heard the girl's voice, and though she had never heard it before, was suddenly certain who it belonged to. Her hand dropped to her holstered sidearm as she stalked into the anteroom.
Will, a forty-year-old man whose usual demeanor resembled a German shepherd in a junkyard, was sitting behind his desk grinning up at his visitor like a crushing schoolboy. The girl, dressed as Cheryl was, in IO's casual black-and-gray uniform, smiled down at him with one palm on his desk. They looked his way, and Will blushed.
"Wilhelm," Nicole Callahan said sweetly, "would you be a darling and fetch me a Diet Pepsi from the breakroom? Take your time, Cheryl and I need to have a little talk."
Cheryl's palm was still on the grip of her nine-millimeter. Her fingers curled around it as the man left. Then Nicole turned to her, and a sudden wave of sanity broke over her, washing away her rage. What was I thinking? I can't hurt her. What am I even angry with her about? Because it was her, and not me? How petty. Her hand dropped off her gun to hang at her side. "I, uh…"
Nicole shook her head. "You're thinking of apologizing. Don't. Your remorse would disappear as soon as I left the room." Her eyelashes lowered, and the air seemed to change. "There. Hate me again?"
Cheryl flushed, her anger returned and reinforced by having been manipulated. But she kept her hand off her sidearm. "With every fiber of my being."
The black-haired femme fatale nodded. "Good. I was expecting a harder time getting past Frank's watchdog. Had the charm dialed up a little high."
"Frank's not here. Will has nothing to guard but an empty office."
"And you. He likes you, but he can't decide whether to adopt you or make a pass at you, since it's plain you have no problem with older men. I suppose if you weren't so obviously fixated on your boss, the choice would be easier."
"What do you want?"
"We need to reach an understanding." Nicole lifted her knee and rested a thigh on the edge of the desk. "You think you know what happened last night. You think I raped your boss, mind-fucked him, and left him for dead. Don't you?"
"What do you think you did, you fucking bitch?"
Unfazed, Nicole said, "I came to Frank Colby's house to offer him a satisfying little bed session as a reward for his loyalty, and a sort of apology from the Director for misjudging him." She looked past Cheryl's shoulder at the wall, a creepy little smile on her face. "It started out very … clinical, but it didn't stay that way. Something very unexpected happened. I won't try to describe it. I'll only say that he made it very hard for me to leave. I spent the night, and by the time I left, he wasn't the only one who was exhausted."
"You look fine to me."
Nicole smiled. "Thank you. Been working on it. Drinking a gallon of fluids and eating pills by the handful. You should have seen me when I came in this morning." The smile fell off her face. "That wasn't the only thing different about being with him. I'm feeling … disinclined to let things between us end there."
Cheryl felt her limbs cool as the blood left them, and gooseflesh travel up her arms. "You'll kill him."
"I don't think so. A second time doesn't have to be as … spectacular as the first. There's a limit to how kind and gentle I can be. But he's tougher than you give him credit for. And I know he's thinking about a rematch too, all risks aside."
Cheryl's voice came out flat as the report from a suppressed pistol. "You do."
"Uh huh. Spoke with him on the phone this morning." She looked up at her. "We're going to be in a relationship. If you can't deal with that, request a transfer, anyplace you want, and I'll pull whatever strings it takes to make it go through."
Cher's eyelids drooped. "Razors?"
"If you pass the physical and other qualifications."
"How about an X-Team?"
Nicole sighed. "I'm making you a genuine offer. Don't be impossible. Only one woman ever got into an Expeditionary Team. She earned it, but she wouldn't have got a shot if her sponsor wasn't someone Director Santini trusted with his life."
"I'm not going anywhere, Nicole. Someone's got to be ready to pick him up and put him back together when you're finished with him."
Nicole regarded her for a long moment. "Well," she finally said, "there are less worthy ambitions than being Frank Colby's rebound girl, I suppose. It's nice to know that at least one person thinks Frank will still be around when I'm done with him." She stood. "Gordon brought me a gym bag he found in Frank's foyer. He thought it was mine."
Cheryl had brought the bag when she had returned to Colby's house; she had dropped it at the door, she now remembered, then gone looking for her boss. She'd found him, and hadn't given it a thought since.
"Just an overnight bag," she said. "He offered me use of one of the spare bedrooms when we work late, just to save me a trip back to Central."
Nicole's eyelashes lowered. "I looked through it, Cher. I don't think that lacy little number at the bottom is something I'd wear to bed alone. Not to mention the three-pack in the side pocket."
Cheryl felt her face flaming. "Don't bother giving it back. Just throw it away." I don't want anything in there after you've touched it.
"Actually, I was going to suggest you pack a bigger bag. Something you can put a real wardrobe into, and a set of toiletries. Take one of the spare bedrooms and make it yours. Start planning to spend nights there."
Cheryl scowled. "What?"
"I can't be with him all the time. The job will keep us apart for days at a time, and … well, that's probably for the best anyway. He's still going to need someone, maybe more than ever. If you're not going to leave, I can't think of anyone better." She shrugged, holding Cheryl's eyes. "I'm not the jealous type, Cher. You two are close, and I'm sure you'll get closer if you stay. I'm okay with that."
"Because you think I don't have a chance of taking him away from you?"
"Not even if you sleep with him," Nicole agreed.
…
…
At mealtimes, the Shop's spacious cafeteria tended to segregate by gender. In most group settings where people do not all know one another well, there are usually minorities who tend to stick together; at IO, women were that minority, and shared tables readily even if they were strangers. At the six-seater where Cheryl sat, the seat beside her was occupied by Ferris Mars, a friend she had acquired since her transfer to Boulder. Directly across from Cheryl sat Barbara Loews, an old friend from the Intelligence Directorate, lately transferred, like Cheryl, from the Miami office.
Beside Babs and opposite Ferris sat a tall, athletic-looking blonde, eating from a tray loaded with more calories than Cheryl would likely consume in a week. Though Cher had never met her, she recognized her name: Christine Blaze. Cher had felt a strange thrill run through her when Ferris had made introductions, because Christie Blaze was the girl she and Nicole had briefly discussed just an hour before.
Babs recognized her too. "So, you're really an Expeditionary? What's that like?"
"Nn hn," The girl said, eyes on her tray. "Not much to talk about." Her tone was casual, but her meaning clear: there's not much I can talk about.
"What about the guys, are they cute?"
"Some," she admitted. "How many depends on whether you think scars are sexy. And whether you've got an age bias. You'd get a surprise if you got hold of some of their driver's licenses and read their birthdates."
Babs shook her head. "It's ridiculous. Guys outnumber us four to one here. Who'd guess it'd be so hard to fill your dating pool?"
"There are plenty of men a girl from Planning can date, if you're not looking for something long-term," Ferris said. "If you like guys in uniform, pick up your service pistol and head down to the range. Plenty of Security guys go down there. You probably need to qual anyway, now you're at Central. I know things are a little looser at the regional offices, but here you need to know which end the bullet comes out of. "
Christie said, "I had a guy in Security hit on me down there this morning." She scoffed. "He was firing at a standard target, no virtual motion, no difficulty upgrades. Half his shots weren't even inside the rings. What a loser."
"Must have been one of Gerry's Kids," said the chestnut-haired woman. "We don't call them 'Security' around here. Surprised you found one at the range."
"Well, like you said, everybody's got to qual here."
"So, Cher," Ferris said, lifting a forkful of greens to her mouth, "do you want to talk about it?"
Cheryl looked up from the food she had been listlessly pushing around her plate. "Talk about what?"
"Men are shameless gossips, especially when one of them is getting some. Some of Colby's security guys talk to my guys, and my guys talk to me."
Christie raised an eyebrow. Babs smiled.
Cheryl felt her neck and face warming. To Ferris she said, "How can you be so casual about this? This isn't just some backseat hump in the parking lot. Do you have any idea what she did to him? The danger he's in?"
Ferris stared at her. "I was talking about you spending night before last at his place. What are you talking about?"
…
"This is going to sound harsh, but you're probably better off." Christie sipped her mug, staring down into its contents.
"You don't know him. He doesn't deserve to be used up and tossed aside by some little witch with calluses on her labia."
"Actually, I've known him for years. We worked together when he was Jack Lynch's fair-haired boy. I met most of the train wrecks he dated, and I was there when they jumped the tracks. You can't tell me he didn't know exactly how things were going to end with them before he even started." She set her cup down. "Some guys just can't handle a solid relationship. So they always pick up losers and psychos, so that when it's over all they need to feel is relief. If they accidentally end up with a good woman, they somehow find a way to screw up the relationship. You can only feel so much pity for them, knowing they're helping to do it to themselves." She pushed back her seat. "I'm headed for the desserts. Anybody?"
Cheryl watched her go. "That was harsh. Were they ever an item?" She doesn't seem his type…
"Not likely. I suppose he might have consoled her when Jack Lynch left, but I doubt it."
"Wait, her and …"
"Yup. Colby was Lynch's fair-haired boy, but she was definitely his fair-haired girl. He promoted Frank out of the field because he showed a talent for planning and leadership. He got her into an X-Team, first and only woman ever, because she had a talent for kicking ass. And for the sneaky stuff they wouldn't let him do anymore, once they put him in an office." Ferris sipped from her mug. "I know what you're thinking. It passed through everybody's mind back then, especially with Ivana getting fast-tracked once she started warming Miles' bed. But if Christie ever got bumped onto a list because she was Jack's girlfriend, she damn well proved she could handle the job."
"So when did they break up?"
"They didn't exactly. He sent her to Central Europe on a deep-cover intel mission, out of contact with the Shop for months. When she surfaced, he was gone."
"Ouch. No wonder she thinks they're all scum."
"You don't know the half of it. She's dating Alicia Turner in PsyOps now, so the rumor goes."
"You can hear anything in the wind around here."
"True. But once or twice a month, Alicia finds an excuse to go to Maclean, and sometimes Christie finds one to visit Boulder. When that happens, they both spend the night off-base. Give me another explanation."