I could see Spider didn’t have a rejoinder for that, but Stemp’s voice cut across the silence with the cool precision of a razor blade. “You have been treated respectfully, and you have not returned the courtesy. Though it’s true we currently don’t have any other analysts with sufficient clearances, that can and will change if necessary.”
Brock turned his sneer toward Stemp. “If you’re still director by next week.”
Stemp’s stony façade remained impregnable. “Indeed. Meanwhile, if there are any other incidents, you will be suspended without pay.”
“You can’t do that!” Blotches of colour flared into Brock’s pasty cheeks.
“On the contrary, I can.” Stemp levelled a deadly gaze at him. “And I won’t hesitate to do so. You and Webb are dismissed. Kelly, stay.”
Brock opened his mouth as if to protest more, but a fractional lift of Stemp’s eyebrow made him press his mouth shut and flounce out. After an anxious glance at me, Spider followed.
Stemp and I eyed each other in silence for a moment. Then he inquired, “What was the booby-trap? And what lies is he spreading?”
I sighed and massaged my temples. God, I had a crashing headache and it wasn’t even nine AM yet. That had to be some kind of record.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t going to bother you with it. It was just a high-tech version of a whoopee cushion; a pressure sensor under my chair that set off a blast of noise.”
“And the lies?”
“He wants you to think I have a drinking problem so you’ll fire me. And he threatened to tell Blue Eddy’s girlfriend that I was sleeping with him.”
Stemp pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose. “And do you have a drinking problem?”
I couldn’t help it. It was such a classic straight line that the punchline just popped out.
“Hell, no. I drink, I get drunk, I fall down. No problem.” Horrified, I clapped my hand over my mouth too late.
A spark flared in Stemp’s eyes, but I wasn’t sure if it was amusement or irritation.
I unmuzzled myself slowly to make sure no more asinine comments were going to fall out of my mouth and added, “I’m joking. No, I don’t have a drinking problem. I went out with Jill Francis on Friday night and had a little too much, but other than that I’ve only had two drinks in the past four months.”
“Very well.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I got the joke. However, I suggest you choose your audience carefully for that sort of humour.” He sank into his chair, looking uncharacteristically tired. “I won’t dignify the other allegation with questions, since it’s irrelevant to your job and therefore none of my business. Dismissed.”
As I turned to go, he added, “Be prepared for another incident. I seriously doubt Brock will let this go.”
I sighed. “Yeah. That’s what I figured, too.”
Chapter 22
When I returned to my office, Kane, Spider, and Jack were assembled inside. As I stepped through the door their accusing expressions made me trail to a halt.
“What?” I asked wearily. “What have I done now?”
“You didn’t mention somebody tried to kill you last week.” Two variations on that theme from Jack and Spider.
“You didn’t mention you’d had an altercation with Brock last week.” That was from Kane.
“Sorry…” I began, unsure which to address first. Deciding the answer was actually the same for both, I added, “It wasn’t really relevant to what we were discussing at the time.” I trudged over to drop onto my sofa. “In fact, it’s still not. What’s the plan for today? John, have you been briefed?”
“Yes,” he said slowly, as if unwilling to let the subject drop. “But I’m not sure what use I’ll be unless you need my protection in the network. I don’t have enough scientific background to contribute anything else.” He hesitated. “And I’m not really sure what you’re researching anyway. As far as I understand it, you’re basically just deciding if you’re going to edit Tammy’s memories or not.”
“Not,” Spider and I said simultaneously.
Kane turned a puzzled face toward us. “So what are we doing here? If you don’t edit her memories, she’ll have to be placed in a secured facility.”
“Jail,” I said bitterly.
“No…” Kane frowned. “She would be allowed to leave under escort-”
“Under guard,” I interpreted unhelpfully. “For a few hours at a time, maybe, and then she’d be locked up again.”
“Well… yes.” Kane’s frown deepened. “But she wouldn’t be a prisoner. Her preferences would be accommodated whenever possible-”
“At someone else’s convenience,” I interrupted again. “It’s a jail. A nice friendly jail, but a jail nonetheless.”
“I think you’re letting your own biases colour your perception…” he began, but apparently my expression convinced him that was a battle not worth joining. “…but it doesn’t really matter at this point,” he finished smoothly. “So I’m back to my original question. How can I help?”
“You can help us brainstorm,” Spider said. “A fresh look from a non-scientific perspective might be just what we need.”
“All right.” Kane leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “So help me understand this. Aydan, if you don’t want to edit Tammy’s memories, why don’t you just… change her mind? Put in a subliminal command to not talk about anything that’s classified?”
I sighed. “I’d love to, but I can’t alter how her brain works. A memory is like a simple text document. Putting in a subliminal suggestion would be like rewriting a computer’s operating system.”
“Couldn’t you just add a lot of memories of people telling her not to talk about certain things?”
“I might be able to…” I tugged on a lock of hair. “But I don’t think it would help. She’s already been told dozens of times, but according to Dr. Rawling she doesn’t have the ability to act on the memories appropriately.”
“Well…” Kane frowned. “Let me play devil’s advocate for a minute, then. You’re fairly sure you can edit her memories if you need to, is that correct?”
I fought down the reflexive urge to deny the possibility. “I’m fairly sure I can remove memories, but that’s not the same. When I did it before, I was just taking out the memories that were mine to start with, so it was easy…” I trailed off at the chorus of disbelieving noises that greeted my statement.
“You forget; we were all there,” Kane said. “It nearly killed you.”
I grimaced. “Okay, easy was the wrong word, but I could do it. But with Tammy, all the memories would be unfamiliar so I’d have to sift through each of them. I don’t know if I’d survive if I tried to do it all at once. And if I had to stop in the middle, I don’t know what would happen.”
“You might end up permanently scrambled together with Tammy,” Spider said fearfully. “Or lost in the network forever.”
A memory-flash of drifting helplessly in interminable data tunnels made my palms go cold and sweaty. “Yeah, that would be bad,” I agreed in a voice that didn’t sound like my own.
“I don’t really think that would happen,” Jack disagreed. “You’ve already experienced Tammy’s memories, Aydan, so there’s no reason to believe a repeat exposure would make it impossible to extricate yourself. A more likely failure scenario would end with Tammy gaining your classified knowledge by accident.”
God, and I’d thought my palms were sweaty before.
“That would be really bad,” I croaked.
“Maybe; maybe not,” Kane argued. “If you failed the first time you could go back and try again. It wouldn’t be a one-shot chance, would it?” At Spider’s uncertain headshake, Kane went on, “And if it turned out to be impossible in the end, Tammy would simply go to the secured facility as planned. Your classified knowledge would be safe there.”
My voice came out sounding faint. “You don’t know what I know.”
Kane’s jaw hardened as h
e surveyed me. If my face looked anything like I felt, it probably wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Oh,” he said. “That’s bad, then.”
I swallowed the papery dryness in my throat. “Hell, yeah.”
“But if you took out all her classified memories, what would Tammy have left?” Spider demanded. “Terry Sherman and the brainwave-driven network are all she’s known since she was eight years old. He was her whole family; her…”
He hesitated, blushing. My mind squeamishly filled in ‘BDSM lover’, along with a deluge of Tammy’s memories that I’d been trying to suppress.
Bound and helpless. Completely at the mercy of another. The red-hot slash of a whip that came from my own terrifying memories as well as Tammy’s…
“…her everything,” Spider finished tactfully.
Jack half-rose from the desk, sudden worry creasing her forehead. “Aydan, what’s wrong?”
I breathed through the panic attack that had seized me. “Nothing.”
They all eyed me dubiously, but I summoned my best reassuring expression and tried to hyperventilate unobtrusively.
“All right…” Kane said slowly, still frowning in my direction. “…so deleting those memories would be a last resort. How about modifying them instead? Give her some happy memories of a great childhood and a satisfying job…”
I was already shaking my head. “I wouldn’t know how.”
“It would be a gigantic task to assemble all the sensory inputs to create even one simple memory,” Spider put in. “Touch, taste, smell…”
“…and I’d get them wrong anyway because Tammy’s blind,” I finished. “So her memories don’t have a visual component but all the other senses are amplified.”
A gloomy silence descended.
“Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” Jack said at last. “Aydan, would you be able to delete only a piece of a memory? For example, if one of Tammy’s day-to-day memories includes sixteen hours of interaction between her and Terry Sherman, there would likely only be a few minutes that referenced classified information. So the editing task may not be as impossible as you think.”
Kane sat up straighter. “And I know you said it would be a huge job, but Aydan, do you think you could remove her memories and store them externally? That way you could work with them at your own pace and just restore them to Tammy as you went along. We could tell her she fell and hit her head, and that she’s experiencing temporary amnesia but all her memories should come back eventually.”
A glance at Spider’s miserable countenance assured me that the idea was a non-starter from his perspective, and I didn’t like it either.
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Theoretically I might be able to, but it’s such a huge job to sort out the memories in the first place, I doubt if I’d have any brainpower left over to pick out specific data and ferry it to an external server.”
“All right, what about a medically-induced coma?” Kane asked. “What if you just took away all of Tammy’s memories and stored them, leaving her essentially a blank slate-”
“That’s sick!” Spider looked as though he was going to either cry or throw up. Or maybe both at the same time. “How can you even…” He trailed off, looking as though he’d just caught Kane eating kittens for breakfast.
Kane held up a calming hand. “I’m not saying it’s a good idea; I’m just playing devil’s advocate, remember? These are the kinds of possibilities the chain of command will consider. You don’t want to get blindsided by something like this at the last minute, do you?”
Spider blinked and swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking convulsively. “No.” His voice came out choked but not accusing anymore.
“And anyway,” Kane went on, “It would only be for a short time. Aydan could probably get through the bulk of Tammy’s memories in a day and restore all the innocuous ones right off the bat. Then Tammy would be free to live as she pleased, and she could just return here under the guise of therapy sessions with Dr. Rawling while Aydan gradually restored the rest of her edited memories.”
“But it’s wrong!” Spider’s voice quavered on the edge of breaking. “I won’t-”
He snapped his mouth shut as Brock appeared in the doorway.
Brock’s beady eyes sharpened and I could just imagine his muckraking little mind eagerly gathering ammunition to use against Spider. The thought of him ‘mentioning’ to Linda that Spider might be involved in something unethical at work made my hands itch to wrap around his scrawny neck.
“You told me to let you know as soon as Tammy and I were out of the network,” Brock said with a show of deference that was clearly intended to be sarcastic. “I texted you but you didn’t answer.”
Spider glanced at his phone, colour rising in his cheeks. “You texted me thirty seconds ago,” he snapped. “I have more important things to do than stare at my phone all day long.” He stuffed the phone back in his pocket. “We’ll be using the network until two o’clock. Keep Tammy out of it until then.”
“Would that be two on the dot, oh mighty leader?” Brock inquired nastily. “Or should I make it two-oh-five just in case you’re doing something so important that you don’t remember to check the time?”
Spider’s blush deepened, but he met Brock’s sneer with a level gaze. “Make it two-thirty just to be safe. I wouldn’t want to take a chance on you accidentally meeting Aydan in the network.” His hazel eyes narrowed. “Because I’m sure you remember what happened to the last guy who met her there.”
“There, see?” Brock cried, appealing to Kane and Jack. “That was definitely a threat! They’re ganging up on me like some incestuous inbred mother-son tag team!” Receiving nothing but stony-faced stares, he turned a sneer on Spider. “Just remember, hotshot, if you get on my bad side your days are numbered…”
His words dribbled to a halt as Kane rose. I watched in admiration as he seemed to get taller and broader while the room shrank around him. I really needed to learn how to project that kind of sheer intimidating presence. Then again, it probably helped to be six-foot-four with shoulders like the Rocky Mountains.
Kane took a couple of unhurried steps toward Brock, who shrank back into the doorway. “I don’t think Webb was threatening you. It sounded more like a warning to me,” Kane said mildly.
“Yes,” Jack piped up from behind him. “You’re very lucky to work under someone as safety-conscious as Spider.”
“And I’m sure Stemp would be interested to hear that you just threatened Spider,” I put in helpfully.
“You’re all a bunch of losers,” Brock spat, and scuttled away.
Kane extended his arms in a leisurely stretch, muscles bulging and rippling across his back and shoulders. “Well,” he said. “That certainly put me in my place.”
The tension shattered as we all burst out laughing. The thought of Brock stewing in his own venom at the sound of the uproar behind him made me laugh even harder. When I doubled over hugging my stomach, Spider glanced over and let out a whoop of fresh merriment.
The grinding stress of the past several days spent itself in a gale of laughter that left us all sprawled in our chairs, feebly wiping away tears while the last of the giggles subsided.
“Oh my heavens,” Jack said at last. She drew a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. “I needed that.”
“Me, too,” I seconded, and murmurs of agreement came from the men as well.
Spider sobered. “Well, I guess Kane’s right.” He grimaced. “Let’s see if you can even store a memory on our servers. If you can…” He trailed off as if not even wanting to consider the possibility.
I reached over to pat his arm. “You’re right, Spider, we need to know. And if I can’t do it, the option’s off the table and we can tell the chain of command we tried.”
He brightened just a bit at that. “Okay. Let’s try it. Whenever you’re ready, Aydan.”
Chapter 23
Several frustrating hours and a too-short lunch later, I slumped on t
he couch rubbing my pounding head.
“It still didn’t work.” Spider’s face was filled with cautious hope. “None of your memories are on the server.”
Despite my pain and exhaustion, I smiled. At least my failure had made somebody happy. “Doesn’t look promising, does it?”
“Nope.” His optimistic expression dissolved into concern. “You look like you need a break.”
I squinted at my watch. “I’m about to take one. I have an appointment with Dr. Rawling.” Dragging myself to my feet, I offered the group a listless wave. “See you later.”
My aching brain sluggishly turned over possibilities while I plodded down the hall to the doctor’s office. What would he want to talk about today? Surely I should have gained some brownie points this morning for not throttling Brock…
I tapped on Dr. Rawling’s open door and he looked up from his computer with a smile. “Hello, Aydan. Come in and sit down.” He rose and came around the desk to take his usual seat in the grouping of soft chairs.
“Hi.” I dropped into the chair across from him, marshalling my mental defenses.
Open. Calm. Cooperative. Sane. Normal…
“Is there anything you’d like to talk about today?” he asked.
“Not really.” I gave him a sane, normal smile. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”
“Nothing specific.” He smiled. “So how was your weekend?”
“Fine, thanks.” After a moment I decided I should volunteer something more just to sound cooperative. “I got my exterior doors replaced, so that was nice. And I started some construction in the basement.”
Shit, was it abnormally paranoid to construct a secret room in my basement?
“Just a minor renovation,” I added.
“Oh, that’s nice. Did you have any visitors?”
“None with shotguns,” I joked.
Spy Away Home (The Never Say Spy Series Book 10) Page 17
