He looked up at Charlotte, who had backed away a few steps. She looked back at him.
"I don't know who you are," he told her, "but you have a lot of explaining to do." As Rex hoisted the enemy up off the deck, the man faded away, leaving Rex holding nothing but artificial air.
Chapter 6
"Fuck!" Esharveer shouted. "Fuck, fuck fuck!" He shot up from the floor mat he'd been dreaming on and ran into his bathroom, barely suppressing a scream. His hair was on fire and soon his clothes would be!
As he stuck his head in the shower and turned on the tap, he did scream. The pain shot through his head and ears like a million knives. He felt loose flesh, blisters and ruined hair on his scalp as he put out the fire and tried to calm himself down. What a horror! And it was all Romantek's fault.
He had no time to deal with it. Escape was imperative. Once Romantek broke through the lock he'd put on their personnel database, they'd come for him. Esharveer couldn't let that happen.
It killed him to abandon his plan to take Marie captive and harm her, but perhaps he'd done enough damage to Romantek. There were two unhappy women dreamers, and together they'd prosecute their case against Romantek and destroy the company.
He put an ice pack on his head for five minutes and sprayed the affected area with an antibiotic meant for scrapes and cuts. The pain was awful. He could barely stand it, and stood gritting his teeth as he looked in the mirror. Dwelling on it was a luxury he couldn't afford.
Packing a bag quickly, Esharveer pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt, crying as quietly as he could. Agony almost crumpled his knees, but he didn't want his neighbors to call the police. Covered as much as he could be, he rushed out of his apartment, calling for a self-drive to take him to the air terminal. Once in the vehicle, he rewired part of the control panel to allow for him to drive it without computer interference. While he was at it, he disabled the tracking mechanism. That wouldn't last long. The cars had redundant systems, but they took longer to kick in, requiring some human at a central terminal to ferret out what happened to their vehicle. That ought to give Esharveer just enough time to get to the terminal and get out of California. Although he'd been disowned by his own family in California, he had friends in India—friends who would take him in and hide him for a time.
Racing wildly through the streets, he hoped he could catch an immediate flight. He planned to take a roundabout route, so it didn't matter where the first flight's destination was as long as he was on it.
Romantek would pay for this. He wouldn't forget exactly what they'd put him through.
His scalp throbbed and felt like it was still on fire. His scorched hair smelled acrid. But he couldn't let it slow him down. Once in India, he'd have a doctor look at it. Unfortunately, he was probably scarred for life.
* * * * *
Back on the Revenge Tastes Sweet, Rex took Charlotte captive. She was in tears and tried to hug him, but he would have none of it. Charlotte didn't know what to do. It was obvious that Rex thought her somehow culpable in this awful situation, but while in the ship's hold she'd realized she was in love with him. It was unrequited to be sure, and she still didn't understand his motivations for some things, but she remembered that intense look in his eyes when they'd been together. It was a look that said Charlotte was something special. Something bigger and better than her scar.
As she was being dragged to the Stealthy Dog, the fighting stopped and crewmen started disappearing. Once on Rex's ship, he gave her a searing look and pulled her into his cabin. He gave her a shove, pushing her into a chair, and then turned around and walked away. Charlotte heard the lock click on the door.
They both knew she could will herself out of the dream, and Charlotte thought it might be best. She touched her scar. Still there. The situation was hopeless, so she closed her eyes and wished for a return to the twenty-second century.
Within moments, she fell through the rabbit hole.
* * * * *
Rex checked on Marie and found her frightened but alright. She had waited to make sure he was alive, but once he showed himself, she was anxious to go back home.
"I won't blame you for being angry at Romantek for this terrible dream, Marie," Rex told her. "But I hope you'll consider the circumstances. There were forces in action that were beyond our control, though we tried."
"What is your real name?" she asked. "You know mine."
"I'm Rex Boyd. I'm here to keep you safe."
"You did, for the most part," she said. "Thank you. I'm going back to my own time now. I will consider your opinion on Romantek's failure. I have to consult with my attorneys. Maybe something could be arranged—money back or a custom dream. I don't know."
"All we can ask for is fairness. We will accommodate you in whatever manner you choose, of course. Goodbye, Marie."
She said nothing else, just closed her eyes and faded away.
Expecting no more and fearing the worst would come of Marie's return to their own century, Rex still had Charlotte to deal with. He alerted the Romantek Operations center that he would be questioning Charlotte, but they told him she had left the dream.
Not only that, but they'd traced her. She was a paying customer.
Rex knew the company was in deep trouble, but his heart skipped a beat. Charlotte might still be a terrorist, having taken on a dream to infiltrate seamlessly. But, in fact, as he thought back over her behavior, she'd been as puzzled by the turn of events as he had. Maybe she was not an accessory to the crime. Maybe she was a victim.
He told Romantek that he was done, and things went black for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he was on the dreaming deck of the Romantek ship, being tended by a para-nurse. It was over.
* * * * *
Charlotte woke next to her nanite gel pod on the dreaming deck. She was woozy and quite uncomfortable as Romantek medical workers cleared her nose of the remaining gel. Although she was weak, she reached up to touch her face. Immediately, tears formed. It was still there. Disappointment brought sobs for several minutes, and the para-nurse fussed over her, worried that she was in pain or something even worse.
"My scar," she gasped between sobs. "It's still there."
The nurse looked at her carefully. "What scar?"
Completely confused, Charlotte felt her cheek again. It was still there. "This scar! Can't you see it?"
"Honey," the nurse said, her voice soothing, "there's nothing there but pretty skin. Did you have one before?"
"It's still there! I don't understand. Can you give me a mirror?"
Nodding, the nurse went away, her white scrubs flashing in the blue-tinged light from above. In a few minutes, she came back with a hand mirror. "Here you are."
"Thank you." Charlotte looked in the mirror. The scar was still there. Why couldn't the nurse see it? "I don't understand," she whispered, more to herself than the nurse. She handed the mirror back.
"You rest," she told Charlotte. "In a few minutes, I'll help you get dressed and you can go back to your cabin to get ready for the after-dream party."
Charlotte nodded, distracted by conflicting emotions. What was happening to her? Had she gone mad?
She recovered with each passing minute, feeling more like herself, but better. Her muscles felt livelier, and though she'd been in decent shape when she'd started, things like moles were gone, and that rough spot behind one knee. Her hair felt softer and her lips more plump. Rejuvenation had been successful for her, but she still felt the scar. Charlotte was puzzling this over when two men came in. They wore their gray suits, blue ties, and white shirts like uniforms, and Charlotte was immediately wary.
"Charlotte Darrell?" the one with brown eyes asked. They were brown with yellow spikes in the iris—enhanced. Charlotte wondered briefly whether he could see her scar with his special vision.
"Yes, that's me."
"You'll have to come with us."
The para-nurse bustled in, not looking at the men. She fussed with Charlotte's garments for a moment, getting them r
eady for Charlotte to wear.
"Where? What’s this about?"
"We're with Romantek security. You're being detained."
A spear of panic shot through her. "What for? I haven't done anything."
The two men looked at each other and back at her. "As you say. Please get dressed."
The nurse shooed them out and helped Charlotte dress in her navy blue pantsuit and yellow blouse. It was one of her best outfits, but Charlotte was too nervous to pay much attention to it. Handing Charlotte her purse, the nurse escorted her to the door, not looking her in the eyes. As the nurse opened the door, Charlotte was taken by the elbow by one of the men and had her purse taken by the other. "Come along."
"Okay. You don't need to force me. I don't understand what this is about, but I'm not going to run away."
The man's grip on her elbow lightened, but he still propelled her down the corridor.
They wound their way through the ship until they reached a door below the passenger decks. It was a door simply marked "Security," gray, like the men's suits, and nondescript. They opened it onto a large anteroom, and led her down another, shorter hallway to a room with a window that looked out on the hall. She sat at the small plastic table there. It smelled liked canned air, artificially freshened.
"May I have my purse?"
This time, the fellow with the orange eyes replied. "I'm sorry, ma'am, no."
"Why not?"
"It will be searched."
"Why are you doing this? I'm just a passenger. I haven't done anything wrong. I have rights, you know."
"You signed away your rights when you agreed to abide by Romantek's security terms of use," said the brown-eyed one.
Charlotte remembered that she had. It hadn't meant anything to her when she'd done it. She didn't expect to break any of the rules. "This must be a mistake. I didn't do anything."
"Chuck, stay here. The boss will be along in a minute. I'll have this purse scanned."
The one with the orange eyes, now known as Chuck, took a position by the door as the other one left.
Temper flaring, Charlotte stood. "I want my purse back, and I demand to know what this is about."
"Sit down, Miss Darrell." He speared her with his strange eyes.
"No! I'm leaving. This is ridiculous." She took two steps toward the door, and he moved to stand between her and her destination.
"Sit down."
He was far too big for Charlotte to overcome. With a curse, Charlotte sat back down and waited. She stared at Chuck, hoping to soften him. It was pointless; he didn't even look at her again once she was seated.
After a while, the door opened. At first, the man was looking back into the hallway, finishing up a conversation, but he turned into the room and Charlotte gasped. It was Rex.
"Chuck, you can wait outside."
Rex eyed her as he switched places with Chuck and the guard left them alone. "Charlotte," he said, moving into the room and sitting in the chair opposite to her.
"Rex! What is this about? Why am I here?"
His jaw was tight when he responded. "Is your real name Charlotte Darrell?"
"Yes! Of course."
"We have your DNA, and if you're not telling the truth, we'll know shortly. There's no point in lying."
"I'm not lying. Did I do something wrong?"
"That's what I'm here to find out. What do you know about the pirate dream?"
"Only what you know." Actually he seemed to know much more. "Or…what the Rex I thought I knew would know. Who are you really?"
"Rex Boyd. I head up the division of cyber-security counter-terrorism."
Charlotte gasped. "Counter-terrorism! Is that what happened with that dream?"
"You tell me."
Frowning, Charlotte's temper resurfaced out of her confusion. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? How should I know? You're the expert."
"Tell me about Esharveer Jaggi."
"Who?"
"We've traced his involvement in this plot, Charlotte. If you know him, and can tell us what you know, I can get some of the charges against you reduced."
Now Charlotte was really mad. "Charges! Are you crazy? I haven't done anything. I'm as much a victim as anyone there. Are you also holding Marie?"
"What do you know about Marie?"
"This is absurd. I demand a lawyer."
"So, you do know something," he said calmly.
"No, I do not."
He sat quietly for a minute, his eyes unfocused as he stared off in the distance. Charlotte thought maybe there was something wrong, but he spoke again. "You're telling the truth."
"Of course I am! How did you know?"
"Your chip is still activated."
"My…Oh, this is rich. I thought that was deactivated as soon as they took me out of the gel!"
He looked down at his hands, then back at her. His blue-green eyes were sincere when he said, "I'm sorry. We had to do it. Once it's deactivated, we can't activate it again, so we had to leave it live. You see, the dream was taken over by cyber-terrorists trying to kidnap Marie. Jaggi got away. We were thinking maybe you knew where he'd gone."
Charlotte had to think about that for a minute. "Why were you in the dream?"
"We knew that someone had been trying to tap into the Romantek computers, with very limited success. Marie is a valuable target, so we had to minimize the threat by sending in someone to monitor the situation and take charge if there was a problem."
"Oh." Charlotte knew, at that moment, that whatever intimacy she'd shared with Rex was totally lost. He was there to do a job. If he'd had a little fun with the scarred girl, it was at the most somewhat unprofessional. It was not serious interest. She touched her face again.
"I'm sorry, Charlotte."
"You're sorry?! Sorry my ass. You ought to be begging me not to sue you. That was one of the worst experiences of my life, and it was Romantek's incompetence that led me there."
"You certainly have the right to sue, but I have to tell you, Romantek has a top-notch legal team. It might be somewhat expensive to chase after them."
"I don't give a fuck. You people have ruined my life, and I'm not going to take it lying down." Disappointment over retaining her scar overwhelmed her. The scar had ruined her life. Romantek was responsible for not removing it. She couldn't sue for that, but the disastrous dream was another thing. If she had to get back at them that way, she would. It might impoverish her, leave her with huge debt if she didn't win. And she had signed liability waivers. These were "circumstances beyond Romantek's control" more than likely. Or, at least that's how their lawyers would have it interpreted. Still, she was furious. Rex was an immediate target.
"I ought to sue you personally as well," she said, her voice almost a hiss. "You took advantage of me."
"Now wait a minute," he said, a slight frown between his black eyebrows. "That was a mutual thing. You were quite willing as I recall."
"It was under duress!"
His frown deepened. "It most certainly was not."
"Oh, yes it was. And you spanked me, too! How dare you!"
"I'm about to do it again. Get control of yourself."
She rose from her chair and he rose with her. Charlotte poked him in the chest. "I am in total control of myself. I hate you and everything you did. Consider yourself on my shitlist."
"You needed what I did, Charlotte. Both the spankings and the sex."
Total fury made Charlotte act without thinking. She raised her hand and slapped him across the cheek. "I hate you!"
He grabbed her wrist and lowered her hand to her hip. "That's enough! I ought to take you over my knee again."
"Don't you dare." She hated the uncertainty in her voice.
"What if I do?"
"I'll scream." Her voice was now barely a whisper. The intimacy of a spanking sounded almost good to her. She'd be close to Rex again. But at what cost? Getting close to him was a losing proposition.
"I don't think so." His grip on her wrist loose
ned.
"I don't care about you. You might have thought that because I'm so unattractive, you could have your way and be doing me a favor. You can go to hell."
"You're still wallowing in self-pity, I see. You're all about being ugly."
"I am ugly! This scar makes me ugly! I hate it, and I hate you!"
"That's it." With only those two words to warn her, Rex sat down and upended her over his knees, throwing a leg over hers to keep her still. He yanked down her slacks and panties and gave her a hearty whack.
"Stop that! I'm going to scream!"
"It's about time you learned that being obnoxious isn't the answer to your problems. I can spank you, make you think about your actions, and maybe that'll make a difference."
Charlotte didn't scream, though he was whaling on her behind with the full force of his hand. He was right about being defensive. It didn't make the emotional wounds heal. In fact, it was possible that her behavior made things worse as people turned away from what they might perceive as coldness. Be that as it may, Rex was lighting a fire on her butt.
"Okay!" she said through gritted teeth. "I get it. Now you can stop."
More whacks peppered her behind, these on the place where her cheeks and thighs came together. "I don't believe that you get it, Charlotte."
How could she make him believe? How could she believe it herself? "Please, Rex! Please stop. I'll work on it. I'll go home and work it out."
With one more mighty spank right at the middle of her cheeks, Rex stopped. Without pulling up her pants, leaving her exposed and vulnerable, Rex helped her stand. Within seconds he had her sitting on his lap and snugged up against his chest.
Although her bottom smarted, being there in his arms was reassuring. He wouldn't have spanked her if he didn't care. He'd have shrugged and walked away. Certainly she'd given him reason to do that. But he scolded her and then soothed her instead.
"You're not ugly, Charlotte. But your self-loathing, now that's ugly. Still, you've never been ugly where it counts."
Charlotte & the Pirate Page 8
