The Spy Is Cast

by Diane Henders

  Hope rose in his face. “That might work.”

  “So then it would only be a minor risk that somebody might see me and recognize me at the party in person. Mixed in with a bunch of other people, that doesn’t seem too likely. Right?” I looked around the table. Stemp and Briggs were nodding with obvious satisfaction. Kane was still frowning, but he said nothing.

  “Good, then it’s settled,” Stemp smiled. The expression was almost as disturbing as his previous inscrutability. “You can leave for Calgary as soon as you’re ready. Webb will give you the necklace, prepare your paperwork and set up your accommodations. I don’t need to remind you to safeguard the necklace with your life.”

  Kane shot him a murderous look that Stemp fortunately chose to ignore.

  “I’ll need to practice a bit,” I cautioned them. “Can I use the Sirius network for a while today before I leave?”

  Briggs nodded. “Done.” He turned to Spider. “Arrange it with Smith.”

  I jerked my head up. “John Smith?”

  “Yes, he took over as head of security when James Sandler died,” Briggs replied.

  “Oh.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “No problem,” I muttered.

  Stemp and Briggs rose, nodded goodbyes, and left. Spider, Kane and I sat silently at the table until we heard the outer door close. As the sound faded, Spider sprang up from the table, tearing off his tie. He flung the tie down on the table and wrenched his suit jacket off, too.

  “This just sucks!” he exclaimed. “This just totally sucks!”

  He turned to me wretchedly, bunching his jacket in his fists. “I’m sorry. I’m so… sorry! I couldn’t do anything. I hoped you’d just turn them down, but I should have known you wouldn’t. This is all my fault.”

  “Whoa, calm down, Spider,” I told him. “I don’t see how this is your fault. And anyway, you know it needs to be done and I’m the only one that can do it. It’ll be fine. We know so much more about how the network stuff works now. And Kane’s good at getting me out of trouble.” I smiled at Kane across the table.

  He met my eyes unhappily. “Not good enough.”

  I shrugged. “I’m still here. And a bunch of Fuzzy Bunny’s guys aren’t.” I could see he was about to argue, so I got up from the table. “Let’s go over to Sirius. I don’t know how long this will take.”

  Webb sighed. “I’ll call Smith before we leave.”

  Chapter 3

  We piled into Kane’s SUV for the short drive across town. When we got out at the nondescript two-storey building, I eyed its bland facade and discreet ‘Sirius Dynamics’ sign with distaste. No good memories here, either. I strode straight into the lobby before the other two could read my face.

  When I hung back, waiting for Kane and Webb to approach the bulletproof security wicket, Spider waved me forward. “You’re in the system now, too. Your fob should be ready.”

  Oh, goody. I kept my face expressionless as I stepped up to the window.

  “Ms. Kelly. Kane. Webb.” The uniformed man placed three badges in the turntable on his side and pressed the lever. The turntable spun around, disgorging the badges and the sign-in sheet. I signed the sheet and recorded the time, then stepped back to attach my fob and make room for Kane and Webb to do the same.

  When we stood ready, Kane nodded me toward the entry door. “Try your fob. Make sure it works.”

  I stepped up to the card reader, and the door obligingly unlatched. “Second floor meeting room again?” I asked, but Webb shook his head.

  “No, we’re going into the secured facility this time,” he said, turning toward a thick, featureless steel door.

  I’d noticed the heavy door back in March, and wondered about it then. Apparently I was about to have my curiosity satisfied. Suddenly I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. It seems to me that the less you know about secret government research facilities, the better.

  Both men eyed me expectantly as I approached the door. There was no visible card reader, so I didn’t quite know what to do. As I bent to examine the latch, I recoiled from a sudden light emanating from what looked like a deadbolt keyhole.

  Webb chuckled. “You have to stand still for the retinal scan.”

  I backed away from the door. “Since when do you have my retinal scan on file?”

  “Since you showed up at the hospital last March,” Kane explained. “When they brought you in, they thought you were a Sirius employee so they scanned you. The record was kept on file.”

  I vaguely remembered a bright light shining in my eyes. “Tricky bastards.”

  Kane shrugged, the corner of his mouth crooking up. “Occupational hazard.”

  I gave him a rueful twist of my lips and stepped up to the door again. This time I held still for the scan, and the latch clicked as the heavy door released. We all stepped through it into a silent enclosure only a few feet square. The door closed behind us with a muffled thump, and I heard the latch engage. I stepped up to the door on the other side of the room, and let it scan me, too.

  Nothing happened.

  My heart began to race as I whipped around to eye Kane and Spider for reassurance.

  “Thirty-second time delay,” Kane explained.

  I took a deep breath. Then another. It was a very small room. All concrete. The top of Kane’s head was only a few inches below the ceiling. I turned away from the other two, controlling my breath. In. Out. Slow like ocean waves. My palms started to sweat.

  I stared at my watch, counting the seconds down.

  “Aydan, I’m sorry,” Kane’s voice was strained. “I forgot you’re claustrophobic. Don’t worry, we’re not trapped here.”

  “Is there a thirty-second time delay to get out, too?” I asked, my voice a little tighter than I’d intended.

  “Yes, I’m sorry,” Kane repeated.

  The latch in front of me released and I snatched the door open to stare down into a featureless concrete stairwell. There was a closed steel door at the bottom. My knuckles whitened on the door handle.

  “We can go back out right away,” Kane told me, his voice calm and soothing. “Just turn around and we’ll go back out.”

  “What if there’s a fire?” I demanded, my hand still clenched around the handle. “How does everybody get out?”

  “There’s a state-of-the-art dry fire suppression system,” Webb explained. “Any fire can be suppressed in ten seconds or less, regardless of how it starts.”

  “Don’t those suck all the oxygen out of the air?”

  “Not the new ones that we’re using,” Spider reassured me. “This is so safe that the gas is used as a propellant in asthma medications.”

  I breathed carefully. The air smelled clean and fresh. I gradually uncurled my fingers from the door lever. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” Kane searched my face.

  I nodded. “I can do this.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I did some more deep breathing. “Yeah. It was just the surprise that got me. I’m fine.” I started down the stairs, hiding my quivering knees.

  The door at the bottom released immediately, and I stepped into a brightly lit white corridor. Glassed-in rooms lined each side, and I recognized the raised flooring that accommodated computer cabling beneath it. There was a constant flow of fresh, cool air. I breathed deeply, forcing my shoulders to relax.

  Spider stepped forward. “This way.”

  To keep myself distracted, I eyed the windows while we walked down the hallway. Some rooms contained computers and electronics, and others were full of test tubes, glass gizmos, and microscopes. In a couple of rooms, lumpy equipment defied my imagination. I hadn’t a clue what it might be used for, and I didn’t think I really wanted to know.

  Near the end of the corridor, Spider held his fob up to a prox pad and stood still for the retinal scan. When he opened the door, we all trooped into a small room lined with computer screens. Webb dropped into a chair with casual familiarity and pulled out a desk drawer.
>
  “Sit, get comfortable.” He waved an airy hand, and Kane and I each pulled up a chair.

  At the back of the drawer, Spider punched in a sequence of numbers on a keypad. When the compartment released, he lifted out a black velvet box and handed it to me. “Here you go, Cinderella,” he joked. “Don’t lose it, or you might turn into a pumpkin.”

  I opened the box, tentatively touching the emerald necklace inside. The large jewel was square-cut, set in a simple, elegant collar of heavy gold links.

  “Wow. That’s a bit of a change from the old amethyst key ring.”

  Spider returned my smile. “We damaged the original amethyst when we extracted the circuitry the first time around. We’ve done a better job with this one, so we can actually remove the electronics without destroying the setting. That way we can place the circuitry anywhere we want. Since you’re going to a black-tie gala, you get the fancy necklace. Try it.”

  I lifted it reluctantly out of the box and placed it around my neck, fumbling with the clasp under my hair. The cold weight of the gold against my skin made me control a shiver. It was a good match for the cold weight of fear on my heart.

  I dragged my mind back to the job at hand. “I don’t suppose you fixed the pain issue while you were tinkering?”

  Webb shook his head regretfully. “We think you get pain because your brainwaves aren’t a perfect frequency match with the network. Without a modulator, your frequency is close enough to get you in, but not close enough to let you get out comfortably.”

  “You couldn’t put a modulator in here?”

  Webb grimaced. “We could. But that would make it visible if somebody was monitoring. As it is, it’s completely passive and undetectable. Without you to drive it, it’s useless.”

  “And you still haven’t found anybody else who can use it?”

  “No. Our pool of candidates is pretty small, since this technology is so highly classified.”

  “It’s so good to be special,” I mumbled. “Okay. Is the network accessible from here?”

  “Yes,” Kane replied. “I’ll go in with you. Webb will monitor the sim externally. Nothing can go wrong.” He said the last words with determination, and I nodded.

  He gripped the Sirius fob that would grant him network access, and I laid mine aside, making sure I’d be using only the emerald’s hidden circuitry to get in.

  “Okay. Let’s do it.” I closed my eyes and concentrated on stepping into the white void of the virtual reality simulation. Kane popped into existence beside me almost simultaneously. Instead of his real-life T-shirt and jeans, he wore full combat gear with a sub-machine gun slung across his broad chest.

  I gazed up at the mountain of camo-clad man as he scanned the void tensely. “I think you’re going to scare the locals.”

  He directed a grim gaze down at me. “I don’t care. I’m not taking any chances.”

  I gave him a faint smile. “Well, you’re not going to get any argument from me. Let’s get a room.” I realized what I’d said as soon as the words left my mouth. “I mean, let’s get out of the portal.” Kane’s face relaxed as I felt a flush climb my cheeks. “You know what I meant.”

  He nodded, one corner of his mouth crooked up. I turned away, flustered, to visualize the corridor. When it materialized in front of us, one of the doors popped open and John Smith himself stepped out. At the first movement of the door, Kane pushed me behind him, unslinging his weapon in a fast, smooth motion. Smith froze, goggling at the business end of the large gun.

  I eyed him with distaste. Even in the simulation, his avatar’s clothes were mismatched, rumpled, and food-stained. And he hadn’t bothered to eliminate his disgusting body odour, either. I breathed through my mouth. This research facility was probably the only place in the world where a man like that could be promoted to department head.

  Smith nodded slowly and carefully as Kane lowered the weapon. “Kane. Ms. Kelly. I see you’re beginning your tests.” He eyed the necklace around my neck. “It would be better if you concealed that.”

  “Right, sorry.” I tucked it inside the neck of my blouse.

  Smith gave us a wide berth as we continued down the hallway to a room with a ‘Vacant’ sign.

  “God, that guy gives me the creeps,” I muttered, closing the virtual door behind us. I gazed around the blank white room, thinking. “Okay, I’m going to try to be somebody else now. I guess it’ll have to be somebody I’m familiar with, or I won’t be able to hold the illusion.”

  I pondered for a few moments. “I think I’ll be a man. If you’re going to go for deception, might as well go whole hog. I’ll see if I can be my husband.”

  “Your ex?” Kane inquired.

  “No, I’ll be Robert. The one I actually wanted to keep. That way even if they do figure out his identity, they can’t hurt a dead man.”

  Kane frowned. “You were widowed young. The death record said heart attack?”

  “Yeah.” I clammed up and concentrated.

  “Um,” Kane said. “Aydan. Clothes?”

  I glanced down at myself, seeing Robert’s naked body. “Oops. Last memory. Sorry, too much information.” I waved a hand and Robert’s favourite plaid shirt and jeans wrapped around me, or, more accurately, around him. I looked up at Kane. “How’s that?”

  “Fine, I guess. You certainly don’t look like yourself.”

  I conjured a mirror out of thin air. For a couple of seconds, my dead husband gazed back at me before dissolving to leave me staring at my own face in the mirror. I turned away from Kane. Two years after Robert’s death, I was mostly okay.

  “Yeah, that was close enough,” I said when I could trust my voice.

  Kane’s voice was quiet behind me. “Want to take a break?”

  “No, let me try that again.” I forced a chuckle. “With clothes this time.” I concentrated again, turning back to face Kane. “How’s this?”

  I gave a quick downward glance. Good, I was dressed this time.

  He nodded. “You look the same as last time. But this is really a little disturbing,” he added with a crooked grin.

  I laughed, feeling my body change back as I did. “And it’s really damn hard to maintain. The instant I stop concentrating, I go back to being myself.”

  “I think that’s good news.” He gave me the full grin this time, and I laughed and nodded agreement.

  “Okay, but here’s the tricky part,” I said. “Now I need to go out of the network, and then come back through the portal again, being Robert. Can you stand in the portal and watch for me? I want to make sure I’m fully disguised right from the first instant I enter.”

  He nodded. “Let’s go.”

  We left the room and retraced our steps down the hallway to the virtual exit door. “Back in a flash,” I told him, and stepped out.

  Expecting the pain didn’t help. And I’d forgotten how much it really hurt. Some of my more creative obscenities leaked through my clenched teeth while I screwed my eyes shut and held my head.

  “Welcome back,” Spider said when I cracked my eyes open. “Thanks for the vocabulary update. There were a couple of those I hadn’t heard for a while.” He was smiling, but his eyes were concerned. “I wish this didn’t hurt you so much,” he added.

  “But just think of all the new language you’d miss if it didn’t,” I groaned, straightening up. I glanced over at Kane’s immobile body, staring into space from his chair. Still waiting for me in the network portal, obviously.

  “Okay, let’s see how this goes.” I concentrated on stepping back into the network, wearing Robert’s body.

  Kane stood at parade rest, waiting for me. “Aydan?” he asked cautiously.

  “Yeah. I’m getting better at this.” I took a few experimental steps. “This feels so weird.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said.

  I laughed, and my simulation vanished. I stretched. “That feels so much better.”

  Kane nodded. “No offense to your late husband, but it looks a whole lot
better, too.”

  “None taken on his behalf. Okay. I’m going to try it once more. Here goes.”

  I stepped out again, managing to restrict myself to some inarticulate groans this time. I breathed through the pain, straightening slowly.

  Spider nodded approval. “That looked good on the monitors. You can quit now.”

  “Just once more.” I rolled my neck and shoulders.

  “Why put yourself through more pain?”

  “Because if my simulation slips and I show up looking like me, there’s a whole lot more pain where that came from. And I won’t get to choose when and where it happens.”

  Webb’s young face hardened. “I see your point.”

  I shrugged one more time to loosen my knotted muscles, and stepped back into the network again.

  Kane nodded. “All right, that looks fine. Anything else while we’re here?”

  “Nothing I can think of.” I sighed and stepped out again, curling down in my chair to wrap my arms over my pain-wracked head. My lips moved while air hissed through my clenched teeth, creating an unpleasantly sibilant string of curses. I straightened gradually, pushing myself up with my hands on my knees.

  Two sets of eyes regarded me with disquiet. “That can’t be good for you,” Spider observed, frowning.

  I massaged my temples tenderly. “Let me know if my brain starts to leak out my ears.” I rolled my neck and shoulders some more.

  “I’m done here if you are,” I said to Kane. “What do we do next?”

  “Next we drive to Calgary. I go home and get some sleep. You go…” He paused. “Did you ever sell your house?”

  “Yes, finally, last month. Thank God.”

  “You’ll need a place to stay, then. Webb can reserve a hotel room for you. And you’ll need to buy whatever you need to get ready for the party.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face, knuckling his eyes. “Do you mind driving? I flew in from Frankfurt this morning and drove two hours to get here in time for nine o’clock. I don’t think I’m safe to drive another two hours on the highway.”

  No wonder he looked so bone-weary. I stared at him in horror. “Don’t these idiots ever let you sleep?”