by Eileen Wilks
He nodded.
“Is that what you feel she wants?”
The wolf shook his head.
“Did she speak to you?”
His nod this time was quick and definite.
“Did she tell you specifically to go with Lily?’
Another nod.
Rule sighed and straightened. That’s what he’d been afraid of.
Lily watched him with a small frown. Ruben’s frown was more pronounced. “You believe that?” he asked.
“Sometimes the Lady speaks to an elder in his waiting time.”
Ruben exchanged a look with Deborah—the kind outsiders couldn’t interpret. “Is this something I’d know if I’d been born lupus?” he asked.
“Probably. Many elders experience the Lady’s presence in their waiting time, sometimes quite keenly, but few actually hear her voice. Those who do . . .” Rule paused, remembering Gregory Lawson, who’d died five years ago. Gregory never would repeat what the Lady had told him. When Rule asked, he’d just shaken his head and smiled, but that smile . . . Rule could only hope that, if he survived to reach his waiting time, he would be as fortunate as Gregory. “Those who receive the blessing of her voice don’t always reveal what she said, but some do. The Lady often uses that moment of clear communion to acknowledge an elder’s service in some way.”
Ruben’s frown lingered. “I should have been told about this possibility.”
“I’ve never heard about it, either,” Lily said. “They’re forever forgetting to mention stuff. Partly that’s because they’re so used to keeping secrets, but also once you’ve been clan awhile, they don’t realize that no one’s told you this or that because it’s something that ‘everyone knows.’” She tipped her head, looking at Rule. “You believe Charles. You think the Lady told him to stick with me.”
“He wasn’t lying.” Rule had been close enough to smell a lie.
“And you don’t think he’s fooling himself?”
“You’ve heard the Lady’s voice. Could you mistake anything else for that?”
She shook her head. She looked wistful.
“We hear the Lady’s song carried on the moon, and we . . . I think . . .” He stopped, struggling for words. There were no adequate words for the Lady’s song. “Hearing her song is not the same as having her speak directly to you, but it’s still her voice. I can’t imagine any lupus could confuse her voice with anything else.”
Lily’s gaze went to the huge wolf in the Mercedes’s backseat. “Looks like I’ll have four-legged company for the drive.”
SEVEN
THE office was large, but far from plush. The desk was large, too, but old and battered. Not the space or the furnishings of a mover and shaker, not in this town, where appearance counted for so much.
The man seated behind the desk fit his office. He was pale and plump and looked like any modestly successful bureaucrat on the shady side of fifty. His head was round, bald, and shiny in the glare of the overhead fluorescents. His glasses were round, too, and rimless. His navy tie matched his slacks and the suit jacket hanging on the coatrack just inside the door. The white shirt he wore was the one hint of personal extravagance, being made of especially fine Egyptian cotton.
He was tapping away at the keyboard in front of him when the office door opened.
The man who entered was seven inches taller and twenty years younger. Something in his carriage suggested the military, though he was dressed much like the older man. His hair was dark and thick, his skin swarthy, suggesting a Mediterranean heritage—Spanish or Italian. “I had a feeling you hadn’t left yet,” he said with a small smile.
“What time is it?” The round little man glanced at one of the computer screens and shook his head. “Six o’clock already. I should let Helen know I’m running late.” But for all the distracted regret in his voice, he was smiling, too. “I suppose Mrs. Ellison has gone home?”
“Yes, sir. I thought I’d see if you want to check out the latest tests on the Prism system.”
“Oh, are those ready? Certainly.” He pushed his chair back and stood.
The two of them left the large, ordinary office. As they headed down the hall, they chatted in a mix of tech-speak and bureaucratese about Prism, which apparently had something to do with cell towers. Most of the offices opening off that hall were dark, but a couple held people working late. Their conversation turned more personal as they reached the elevator. The younger man asked the older one about Helen’s recent foot surgery. They discussed bunions as they rode down four floors.
When the elevator stopped at the ground floor and the doors opened, neither man got off. Instead the younger man inserted an unmarked key card into a slot. The doors closed and the elevator descended again, although the indicator stayed on the ground floor. When the doors opened a second time, they stepped off.
There was no hall this time. They stepped directly into a large room where a couple dozen people sat at workstations watching displays. About two-thirds of the stations were manned; the displays at the unmanned stations were dark. Several of the workers wore headphones. The two men spoke about text messages again as they skirted the perimeter of the big room, stopping at one of the doors along that perimeter. The younger man used his key card a second time, inserting it into a slot where a doorknob would normally be. There was a faint click. He pushed the door open.
Three people sat at the round table inside—two men and a woman. The woman and one of the men wore versions of the bureaucratic uniform. She was blond; he had carroty red hair. The third man had at least one Asian parent. His jeans and black silk shirt set him apart from the others, as did the way he lounged back in his chair. A large screen hung on one wall.
No one spoke until the door closed. “We’re tight,” the woman announced. She was watching at a handheld device that resembled a touchscreen phone.
The younger man pulled out a chair and sat. His superior remained standing as he addressed the others. “The curtain goes up tomorrow,” Edward Smith told them. “Chuck, please bring everyone up-to-date on your end.”
“Yes, sir.” The red-haired man pointed a remote at the screen, which lit up. A flowchart appeared. “As some of you are aware, we weren’t able to create the optimal routing due to the unexpected addition of magical protection on Target Duo’s accounts. Weng believed he could disable those protections, but couldn’t guarantee he could do so without being detected, nor was he able to determine what would happen if the ward was triggered. It was decided that the risk was unacceptable.”
The two looked at the Asian man, who shrugged. “Hey, Seabourne’s good. Not as good as me, but it’s always easier to set a ward than to eliminate one without getting caught.”
“Wait a minute,” the blond woman said. “You’re saying he warded a bank account? How is that even possible?”
Tom Weng’s upper lip lifted in a sneer. “And of course magic can’t be used on electronic records. Otherwise we’d be able to do things like, oh—maybe change the history of how funds were moved through a particular system.”
The woman flushed with embarrassment or anger. “A ward by definition is fixed. Electronic data is fluid.”
Tom shrugged. “Obviously this isn’t a conventional ward. I call it that because it serves a similar function, not because it’s constructed along conventional lines.”
“But how—”
“Give it up, Sharon. Nowhere in my contract does it say I’m obligated to instruct you.”
The woman smiled unpleasantly. “Meaning you don’t know how Seabourne did it, either.”
Smith broke in before the discussion could devolve into an outright argument. “Since we weren’t able to implicate Target Duo directly, we’ll be using the secondary plan. I’m not going to brief you on that right now, but it’s proceeding as planned.”
“And Target Tres?” she asked.
“Remains on sick leave and so not our concern, though we will assist Tom if he chooses to act. At this time, he does not r
equire our assistance.” He looked at the Asian man. “Tom, please apprise the others of your implementation of the attack on Target Prime.”
He shrugged. “I did what I said I would. Your geeks implanted the changed data, and I made all traces of the tampering go poof and spread the changes around.”
“That’s not a briefing,” Carrot-top complained. “It doesn’t come close to explaining anything.”
Tom looked bored. “I’m not obliged to explain. If I tried, you wouldn’t understand one word in ten. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you do know something about the effect of trans-zero substitutions on immaterial matrixes.”
Carrot-top scowled. Before he could speak, the woman did. “Don’t bother, Chuck. He’s being obscure on purpose. He doesn’t want us to know how he does what he does, just in case one of the kids might learn how to do it, too, and then where would he be?”
“Still employed,” Tom drawled, “since none of your kids have or ever will have a clue how to make the potion.”
The woman lifted her chin. “You’re sure of that? We know what the key component is.”
“You probably know the key component in a nuclear bomb, too. Doesn’t mean you can make one. Though you could do that long before you could duplicate my potion. Unless,” he added so politely it registered as sarcasm, “you’ve managed to locate a kid with the Sight and haven’t mentioned that to the rest of us?”
“Tom is and will remain an invaluable part of our team,” Smith said firmly. “Now, Greg tells me he’s completed testing the results of Tom’s magical cleanup.” He nodded at the younger man who’d come to get him. “If you’d let the others know the results?”
Greg spoke in crisp, jargon-rich sentences, ending with, “. . . all negative, in other words. Tom has done exactly what he said he would. No one will find any sign that the files were altered.”
There were grins, a few words of congratulations. “This is it, then,” Carrot-top said. “Are we green to go?”
“If the girl follows through on her threat,” Carrot-top said worriedly.
Smith brushed that off. “I am confident she will, but if I’m wrong, it’s hardly a disaster. The public pressure will be less, but you can trust me to see that Eric acts.”
Carrot-top grimaced. “I suppose so. Still, he’ll be more motivated if the reporters are screaming. I guess we can count on her to remain a traitor, but she’s also a coward. What if—”
Smith spoke with sudden sternness. “She’s not a traitor.”
“Oh, come on. She turned on us. She puts those weirdos of Sharon’s above the good of the country. If that’s not—”
“The children are not weirdos!” Sharon snapped.
“Enough.” Smith rapped the table with his knuckles. “Demi is misguided and squeamish. Her actions make her our enemy, but that is not the same as treason. If we delude ourselves into thinking that those who oppose us are traitors, we will fail. We will fail because we won’t understand our enemies’ goals and motivations.” He looked around the table, holding each pair of eyes briefly. “Most civilians aren’t capable of putting the country first. They aren’t capable of making the hard decisions. They need us to do that, whether they realize it or not. We’re their protectors, and if we must do much of our work in secret, so be it.”
Heads nodded. Eyes glowed with fervor. Greg murmured agreement.
Tom Weng looked sardonic. “So would you say that Target Prime is an enemy or a traitor?”
Smith stood. “Oh, he’s both. No question about that. Ruben Brooks is very much our enemy. He is also a traitor to this country. We’ve known that for some time. People with nothing to hide don’t go to such extremes to make sure we can’t listen in on their calls.”
“That drove me crazy,” muttered Chuck. “I still don’t know how he blocked me on some of his calls.”
Smith waved that away. “It hardly matters now. Thanks to Tom, we know what form his treason takes. And soon everyone else will know, too.” He smiled. “It’s time for me to give Eric a call.”
EIGHT
THE piercing alarm made Demi scowl and pull her pillow over her head. It didn’t help. Muttering to herself, she threw the pillow off, reached out, and slapped the button on the cheap clock. She sat up on the edge of the narrow bed and rubbed her face.
One forty-five. Time to get up. She’d hadn’t even tried to go to bed until six this morning, keeping herself busy by playing online games and reading posts in the forum and at her favorite fan site. She’d needed something to do in between checking over and over for a response that hadn’t come.
Today it would. It had to. Today was the last day for Mr. Smith to respond. If he didn’t, the first file was going out, and he couldn’t afford to let that happen. She’d sent him part of that file so he’d know she meant business, that she could take him down if she had to.
Her stomach hurt. Slowly she stood, wishing she liked coffee. That had to be a nicer way to wake yourself up than with a jolt of fear. Though fear did the job pretty well.
The twin bed opposite the one she slept in held a pile of dirty clothes and a top-of-the-line MacBook. Oh, shoot. She’d forgotten. Her favorite screensaver was showing, the one that switched among her collection of Rule Turner photos. Usually she didn’t leave that up because she was being a guy now. If anyone saw it, they’d think she was gay. She wouldn’t care about that if it weren’t for the “getting beat up” aspect. Lots of people in high school and college had thought she was gay, which she wasn’t . . . and why wasn’t it okay to wear a pin saying “I’m straight”? She’d thought that was a great idea, but Nicky talked her out of it. He claimed it would send the wrong message, which made no sense. Apparently she was sending the wrong message without the pin.
The Aspies in the forum thought pins were a great idea and that everyone should wear one: “I’m straight,” “I’m gay,” “I’m bi,” or “I’m asexual.” They couldn’t agree on if trans people should modify their pins—“I’m trans straight” or “I’m trans gay” or whatever. Most of the gay and straight Aspies thought it depended on whether or not you’d had the full surgery; to them, it was only fair to let a possible sexual partner know up front if you didn’t have the type of genitals they expected. The bi’s thought it was unnecessary to announce a variance between appearance and identity, since there were plenty of workarounds. And the asexuals didn’t care.
Demi thought the reason they couldn’t agree was that none of them were trans. Aspies weren’t good at imagining themselves into other people’s feelings. They all agreed that pins would work for most people, though.
Normal society did not see it that way. Normal society liked to make things complicated. And unfortunately, some people in normal society liked to beat up on gay guys. Demi usually didn’t leave her Rule Turner screensaver up.
She moved to the bed holding her laptop and sighed. He was so pretty, but looking at him didn’t make her feel one bit better today. She hurried through the security protocol and checked for flags. Nothing. She logged into the IRC server . . . several new messages, but nothing directed at her. Her heart pounding, she hopped over to the gardening forum where she’d directed Mr. Smith to post a response.
Still nothing. How could there be nothing?
The forum wasn’t down. There were new messages on other threads, but nothing on the one she’d started. The one where Mr. Smith was to respond by two o’clock today. It was 2:05.
She didn’t understand. She’d planned for all sorts of possibilities, everything she could think of. Everything except silence. How did silence make sense? Mr. Smith was a terrible person, but he wasn’t stupid. He had some reason for not responding, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure it out.
He’d be trying to find her. That much she was sure of. But he’d been trying to find her for eleven months and hadn’t managed it . . . except for last March. He’d come close then. Way too close. Maybe he was close again. Close enough that he thought he didn’t have to answer her.
> But he shouldn’t think that. She’d told him. If she didn’t send a certain code, the first file would be released automatically. The others would follow on a preset schedule. Grabbing her—even killing her—wouldn’t stop that.
Why hadn’t he answered?
When Demi’s stomach growled, she realized she’d just been sitting there, hugging herself and rocking. She let out a shaky breath. Bodies were weird. How could her stomach be upset and hungry at the same time? It was, though.
At least today was Sunday. She took a deep breath, stood, and stepped carefully around the fan that was trying valiantly to cool things off. She liked a lot of things about the little Airstream trailer that was home for now, but not the lack of air-conditioning. At least she’d be at work by the time the interior temperature hit “oven.”
The bathroom was only a few steps away. She’d decided years ago that sleeping naked was more efficient, so she didn’t have any pajamas to deal with. She turned on the hot water, emptied her bladder, then adjusted the water temperature in a shower designed for munchkins. Demi was five feet, ten inches tall. She hadn’t fit under the original shower head, so she’d replaced it with a handheld.
Not that her landlord knew about the alteration. The old witch would have a hissy fit if she found out, though it was clearly an improvement.
Mrs. MacGruder was the other thing she didn’t like about her current home. The woman had mean eyes, a mean mouth, and a cold heart. Otherwise, the place suited Demi. It was cheap, close to the gas station, the utilities were included in the rent, and there weren’t any roaches. Give Mean-Eyed MacGruder that much—she was a demon for clean. The little trailer might be old and worn, but it had been spotless when Demi moved in. And it was nice outside. Mrs. MacGruder’s property was right on the edge of Whistle, and if the ground between Demi’s trailer and her landlady’s home was more weeds than yard, it had looked really pretty in the spring with all the wildflowers. They’d stopped blooming now and the mix of grass and weeds looked tired and dry, but the woods that bordered the land on one side were green and soothing to look at.
