Liar. But what was interesting to Bryn was that what she’d seen flash over his face hadn’t been the logical match to the lie—not impatience, or disgust, or superiority. What she’d seen had been pure, weary guilt.
Patrick McCallister, she thought, didn’t really like his job very much. Well, how many corporate drones actually did? Brilliant deduction, Bryn, she told herself. You could get federal funding for a research project on that.
Still, it made him just a touch more human to her.
“When can I get out of here?” she asked. She rubbed her arm where he’d given her the shot; it felt warm now, and a little tender.
“Soon,” he told her. He went back to the door and opened it again; this time he was gone longer, and Bryn took a deep, convulsive breath of fresh air that drifted in. Well, not fresh, but new. She felt stifled in here. What she could see of the hallway outside looked like more of the same, though—white tile, clean-room sterility. She couldn’t see any natural daylight, just fluorescents. It felt like they were underground, but they might just as easily have been fifty stories in the air, sealed off from the outside.
McCallister came back with something that looked like a tablet PC, something he made a few taps on and then handed to Joe Fideli, who examined it and nodded.
“What is that?” Bryn asked.
“A lot of things, including an audio/video recorder, infrared detector, secured Internet connection, and tracking device.”
“And it’s got blackjack on it,” Fideli said, straight-faced. He tapped the screen, then turned it around to show her a map, with a blinking light superimposed on it. “That’s you. I can track you anywhere with this. There’s an app for everything, apparently.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“The nanites in your bloodstream represent a significant financial investment,” McCallister said. “We’d prefer it if we knew where you were at all times. And, obviously, we need to be able to find you to get you the shot.”
She hated the first part of that, but the second wasn’t unreasonable. “Where’s the tracking device?”
“Inside you,” Fideli said. “It’s a smart device; it went in with the nanites and is attaching to your bone right now. Won’t come off easily. Long battery life, too.”
“It’s not something we would use on a living person,” McCallister said. “The battery sheds toxins, and can lead to metabolic bone problems, but the nanites can easily deal with it.”
“You people are crazy!”
“We’re not you people,” McCallister said, and handed her a clipboard full of paperwork. “You’re one of us now. Officially.”
She looked at what he’d handed her. Employment forms, including—of all the crazy things—a full application and 1–9 form. He shrugged.
“I’ll need to see some ID, too. Welcome to the corporate world,” he said. “I never said it would make sense.”
Fideli drove her home about six hours later, in a big, black SUV with dark-tinted windows that just screamed covert operations to her. She felt a little queasy, and rolled down the window enough to get a cool breeze on her face. It was night again. She’d been dead most of one day, at least.
The first day of the rest of your so-called life. That almost made her smile. Almost.
“Hungry?” Fideli asked her. “ ’Cause I could murder a burger right about now.”
She wasn‘t, but she wasn’t sure whether that was biology or just depression. “Do I eat?”
“Sure. Same as you ever did.”
“Oh. Okay. Burger sounds fine. Whatever.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. The SUV smelled like leather and cologne. A guy car, definitely. As she shifted to make herself more comfortable, something dug painfully into her hip, and she reached behind her to find it.
She pulled out a brightly colored plastic toy gun. Day-Glo orange and yellow.
Fideli glanced over at it, rolled his eyes, and grabbed it away. He tossed it in the backseat.
“So … what is it, some kind of well-disguised stealth weapon, or—”
“My kids,” he said. “Can’t ever get them to clean up after themselves. Sorry about that.”
Kids. She looked around the SUV with fresh eyes, not assuming anything this time. It was clean, but there were definitely signs she’d missed the first time … the most obvious being the infant car seat strapped in behind her.
She couldn’t help it: she laughed, and kept laughing. It felt like a summer storm of pure, frantic mirth, and when it finally passed she felt relaxed and breathless. Fideli, making a right-hand turn into the parking lot of a burger joint, sent her an amused look. “What?” he asked. “It sounded good, whatever it was.”
“I had you pegged for some corporate James Bond,” she said, and shook her head. “Licensed to kill. Driving some kind of high-tech armored spy vehicle with rocket launchers. Jesus, you have a car seat.”
“Wouldn’t let my kid ride without it,” he said. “I’ve got three. Oldest is Jeff; he’s seven. Then Harry; she’s five. Juliet’s the baby.”
“I guess you’ve got a wife to go with that.”
“Kylie,” he said. “Best wife in the world. Best mom, too.” He sounded quietly proud. “Here. Pictures.” He opened the glove box, and there was an honest-to-God brag book in there, of charming kids and a pretty wife. Fideli looked like a different person in those pictures, relaxed and happy, a little goofy. It was … adorable.
And it reminded Bryn, with a cold shock, that her life was never going that way. Not now. She stared down at the picture of Juliet, a happy, giggling little baby in her mother’s arms, and her eyes filled with tears. “I can’t have kids now, can I?” she asked.
Fideli said nothing. When she looked over at him, his mouth was set in a pained, grim line, and his knuckles were tight where he gripped the steering wheel. She closed the picture album and put it in the glove compartment. The silence held until they were pulled up in front of the glowing marquee with all of the not-healthy choices.
“I’ll have a Monster Burger with fries and a Coke,” he said to the speaker, and then glanced at Bryn. “How about you?”
“Same thing,” she said, and tried for a smile as she wiped her eyes. “Guess cholesterol’s not an issue, right?”
“Bright side,” he agreed, and conveyed the order. “Might as well get extra cheese with that.”
The smell of the food filled the cab as they pulled away from the payment window, and Bryn realized that she was actually hungry. Funny, she hadn’t expected to feel that at all, for some reason. Sensation, yes, but needs? It just seemed strange.
French fries still tasted as salty-delicious as ever. She munched on them as Fideli drove the last two miles to her apartment. It wasn’t much, a lower-middle-class kind of neighborhood with hardworking people. The apartments were generic and cheaply made, but affordable. Fideli didn’t ask what building she lived in, which indicated a little more knowledge about her than she felt strictly comfortable with; he parked the big SUV and said, “You mind if I take off? I like to eat with the family when I can.”
“Sure,” she said. She felt strange, suddenly, as if she were looking at a building she didn’t know, facing an evening with a total stranger: herself. She took her Coke and bagged food, but made no move to get out of the truck. It idled gently, waiting. Fideli watched her in silence.
“Hey,” he finally said. “Better idea. How about you come with me?”
She jerked a little in surprise, because she really hadn’t expected that. She’d been waiting for him to impatiently order her out. “What?”
“Home,” he said. “You look like you don’t need to sit alone and watch your burger get cold, Bryn. It’s been a pretty full couple of days for you, I’d say.” What he wasn’t saying was that he saw the fear in her. Fear of facing life alone, the way she was now. Whatever she was.