Anika tilted her head and slanted her gaze upward. This was the Command she knew, the talk she expected. “Is this the standard speech for Command recruitment?” she asked. “If so, it could use some work.”
Command’s face shut down. She turned on her heel and walked to the window that looked out over Hub. “Report to Interrogation.”
“Not debriefing?”
“Debriefing is for clean operatives.”
“What then? Will you honor our arrangement?” Anika stood, her sandals sinking into the padded floor.
“Are you in such a hurry to begin a life of running and hiding?” When Anika didn’t respond, Command said, “Very well. But first, let’s see whether the interrogation session and follow-up analysis confirm what you’ve told us. Go.”
The door to the interrogation room slid open.
Anika lifted her chin and straightened in her chair in the middle of the stark white space.
Bring it.
A woman with glossy brunette curls and curves as treacherous as a slick racetrack stood on the threshold.
Anika didn’t recognize her.
“Well, if it isn’t Lady Lazarus.” Sarcasm danced through the woman’s exquisite British accent.
“Evan?” Anika could barely absorb the vision of breasts, hips, and thighs poured into a metallic blue hyper-mini dress.
A seductive smile played across the fine-boned features of U.N.I.T.’s tech prodigy. She strutted into the room on lethally spiked heels. Halfway toward Anika, she tripped and grabbed the back of a chair to save herself, ruining her dramatic entrance.
“Bloody shoes.” She plopped down on a hard seat and looked up at Anika who pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. “Laugh all you want, my sweet, but this camo worked. Especially these.” She cupped the breasts three sizes larger than normal. They almost leapt out of the low-cut dress.
“Been playing with the props in Wardrobe?” Anika asked.
“They are part of my cover,” Evan said. “The mark fell for them — and me — like a sack of plutonium. He’s spilling his guts in the next room.”
“
You
accepted a sweetheart mission?”
“Second tricked me into taking it. She knows the one thing I can’t resist — a double dare. Must work on that.” Evan rolled her eyes and tugged off her wig. Her own hair lay flat against her scalp. “Can’t wait to get back to normal.” She glanced down at her fake breasts. “Think I’ll hang on to these for a bit longer, though. Mac really likes them.”
“Mac?” The room seemed to tilt. “You and Mac?”
“It’s nice to have someone to play with around here.” Evan shrugged and her breasts jiggled precariously above the dress’s low neckline.
“I noticed a new guy at your station in Hub.”
“I call him Spook. Thinks he’s some kind of genius.” Evan snorted. “Second said it was just until my mission was over. But I think the bitch is trying to teach me a lesson. Because of the special account.”
Anika’s eyes darted around the room and her muscles tensed.
“Don’t worry.” Evan lifted one foot. The room lights glinted on the shiny metal heel. “My newest invention. It disturbs frequencies within a three-meter radius. We’ve got a few minutes while they try to restore audio.”
“Second found out about the account?”
“Had it shut down right after I made that last withdrawal.” Evan continued studying her heel, turning it right, then left. “Hope you enjoyed the bender.”
“I wanted to tell you.” Anika bit down on her lower lip.
Evan twirled the wig around her finger, studying Anika. “That’s okay. I know how things work around here.” She stopped twirling. “Besides, I guessed something was up. Gianni would never let you take a solo.”
“Do you know if a new solo is being planned?” Fear prickled the back of her neck. “Could that guy … Spook, be working on one?”
“Not a chance. I was just over there, checking up on him.” Evan grabbed the enormous breasts again. “Put these right into his face while I leaned over his monitor. Poor bugger turned scarlet. He was working up routine scenarios.”
“I have to see Gianni. Any chance you can get me into Clinic for a quick visit?”
“Gianni’s not in Clinic.”
“What do you mean? I saw the medics take him.”
“They’ve transferred him to D zone.”
Anika recalled Command’s threat about D zone, her chilling comment that exile would be preferable. She leaned forward and dropped her voice to a tense whisper. “What happens in D zone?”
“No one knows. Super classified.” Evan shifted in her seat. Her fingers crushed the wig’s curls.
“Evan … ” Anika gripped the edges of the chair. Some part of her mind registered the feel of cold metal. “Gianni told me Level Threes get to choose between a solo or exile.”
“D zone is reserved for experiments.” Evan plucked a strand of hair from the wig.
“Experiments?” Anika swallowed hard. “What kind?”
“You want my advice? Take your bloody freedom and get the hell out of here.”
“They won’t just let me walk out of here. They’re probably prepping the exile chamber right now.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Your escape from a solo has boosted morale. No one understands how you did it. Word is that you cut a deal with Command.” She quirked a dark-tinted brow at Anika, who didn’t respond. “Yeah, okay,” she continued, “the other agents are saying if you could do it, maybe they can, too. Stupid optimistic fucks, but there you have it.”
“You don’t want out of here? Ever?”
“I’m not like you, my sweet, dreaming of a life on the outside, with a man, a house, kids.” She stopped as Anika sucked in a breath. “Where else can I hack into top security systems, blow up buildings, invent stuff … ” She paused and lifted her shoe again. “Without ending up with a guy like Salazar as my cellmate?”
“I didn’t think Command cared about morale.”
“She doesn’t. But she does care about efficiency. Ratings are up six points, a new high. That means we get the pick of the new recruits. Command won’t exile you. Not right away. She’ll at least appear to let you go. I’d say you’ve got a four-hour head start after you leave here.”
“I’ve got to see Gianni,” Anika said. “Can you get me access to — ”
The door opened and two interrogators stepped inside.
Anika recognized the woman, who had the face of a grandmother and the heart of a psychopath. The second interrogator looked like her nervous grandson. His Adam’s apple bobbed with every swallow.
“You were told to wait in the other room.” Psycho-grandma frowned at Evan.
Evan stood and adjusted her breasts. “Sorry.” Her mouth lifted at one corner, discounting the apology. “These tits cloud my memory.” She sashayed past the young man whose wide eyes tracked every wiggle.
Anika steeled herself for a harsh session, but the pair didn’t use any of the techniques she expected — threats, body blows, drugs. They didn’t even hook her up to the machines when the questions started. She stuck to the basic story she had given Command and Second, varying her word choices and sequencing just enough to sound unrehearsed.
Rounds of questioning were followed by gardenia-scented gas piped into the room. Even though she fought the drowsiness, the gas always won. Partway through the seventh round — or maybe it was the eighth — the guards who had taken her to Command’s office returned and the interrogators left.
Anika sucked in a breath, uncertain what to expect. A blow to the head? Escort to the exile chamber?
The guards took up their previous positions, with the brawny red-headed one on her right and the leaner dark-haired one on her left. They led her into an elevator that traveled sideways and opened up into an unfamiliar area with baby-blue walls and a sponge-like floor. A marker on the wall read “D zone.”
Anika stiffened and her throat squeezed shut.
D zone. Where Command had threatened to send her if she refused the solo. Where Gianni was now, if Evan was right. Oh sweet God.
Both guards slid their hands to the lasers strapped to their thighs. A hallway stretched in front of them, with windowless doors on either side. A door on the left swished open and a man in a calf-length lab coat stepped out. Rhythm-and-blues throbbed into the corridor followed by a high-pitched scream. Then silence. The door shut and the man stood back to let them pass.
Anika’s footsteps slowed.
The guard on her right pushed her forward.
Her sandals squeaked in the sudden quiet.
The hallway dead-ended at yet another door. The red-haired guard waved his hand across the wall panel and the door opened.
“Please step forward.” A man called out from inside.
Both guards moved back.
Anika narrowed her eyes to peer through the dusky light. Soft music filtered through the air and pricked at her ears. It sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it. The door brushed her shoulder blades as it shut behind her.
Her gaze swept the room. A column of light stood seven meters ahead. Inside its golden circle sat Gianni.
Relief and anxiety clashed inside her.
He’s still alive, but for how long?
She strained to get a better look, but he was angled away from her. She could only make out a sliver of his profile.
The urge to run to him swept through her, but survival instinct held her in place.
I’m in the bowels of the nightmare now. If I show any weakness, I’ll never make it out alive. And neither will Gianni.
She took a cautious step forward. Then another.
Her sandals sank into the floor as if she were standing on gel-filled pillows. She reached out to steady herself, but the same squishy material covered the wall. She snatched her hand back. She didn’t like this space.
A soprano’s voice soared through the air. Not just any music, Anika realized with a tightening of her chest.
O mio babbino caro
. Gianni’s favorite Puccini aria. The last time she had heard it, Gianni had been cooking for the two of them.
Ossobuco alla Milanese.
The room’s walls, ceiling, and floor appeared to be made of the same translucent material. It flowed from one plane to the next with no seams, no hard corners to mar the smooth contours. The ceiling arced, the floor dipped, and both ends of the room tapered. It was like being inside a …
giant goddamned egg!
The man who had spoken to Anika stood at the far end. The crook of his arm cradled a handheld three times the normal size. His fingers alternated between tapping on the screen and tugging at one of his bushy eyebrows.
Gianni was unnaturally still, like a statue in the virtual museum tours she had yawned her way through as a first schooler.
Rhythmic percussive beats threaded through the music. It took her a moment to identify the sound.
Heartbeats.
Not hers.
Her heart raced like a greyhound on the home stretch.
These beats were slow, steady.
She walked toward Gianni until she stood within an arm’s distance of the light. The room brightened as if an invisible hand were adjusting a switch.
Despite the room’s mild temperature, goose bumps broke out on her arms and neck. She stood in front of Gianni. No response. She swallowed back the metallic taste in her mouth.
He sat in a chair that rose up from the floor in a single curving “S.” Rainbow colored filaments, pulsing with activity, snaked through the chair’s frame. Sensors attached to his temples, neck, wrists, and ankles.
A pale gray jumpsuit sagged around his neck and waist. The pants’ legs almost covered his feet. His bare feet, she realized with a sickening start. Gianni never went barefoot. Now, his feet were exposed and defenseless.
His cheekbones etched razors along his skin and his hair hung limp and uncombed. But it was his eyes that made Anika’s stomach cramp. Like a doll’s eyes, vacant and lifeless, they stared over her head at the wall behind her. Every now and then, they flickered as if watching a series of images. To her, the wall appeared empty.
“Gianni.” She started to lift her hand toward him when a commanding voice broke through the music.
“Don’t touch the subject.”
Anika spun away from Gianni, arms sweeping out from her sides in protection. She swiveled her gaze around the room and tried to pinpoint the direction of the voice.
“What have you done to him, Second?” Anger overtook fear.
The aria grew louder and the singer’s voice swelled with passion.
She turned back to Gianni, unclenched her fist, and extended her hand. A resistant force, like compressed air, met her skin just before she touched the light. She pushed against it.
At first, the contact felt gentle, like the pleasant tingle from a lover’s touch. Then the tingle turned to fire and shot up her arm. The force lifted her and flung her back against the floor. The lush material absorbed her fall so easily it took her a second to realize what had happened.
Through it all, Gianni didn’t flinch. His eyes tracked her movement, then skimmed over her, through her, and returned to the wall, drawn there as if by a magnet. The beat, beat, beat of his heart remained steady.
“You were told not to touch him.” The technician didn’t look up from his handheld, but kept tapping his fingers in an even rhythm. Seconds passed and his fingers stilled. “Memory amputation complete.”
The aria faded, then began again.
Anika stood up on shaky legs.
What have they done to you? What have I helped them do?
“That will be all. You’re free to go.”
The door slid open. The two guards loomed outside.
Anika didn’t move. She couldn’t leave him. Not like this.
“I want to stay.” The words burst out of her. “Do you hear me? I said I want to stay. Just stop what you’re doing to him. I’ll be the best damn operative you’ve ever had. Tell Command. I want to stay.” Returning her gaze to Gianni, her voice dropped to a whisper. “I want to stay.”
Slow and steady heartbeats pulsed through the air.
Second’s voice returned, flat and dispassionate. “We’re giving you what you want. Your freedom. Now go.”
This wasn’t freedom. Not the way she had dreamed about it, hungered for it. All her years of longing to escape transformed into a fierce longing to stay.