Authors: Riley Barton
Still, he couldn’t overlook the fact that every time he tried to do anything remotely strenuous, his healing wounds reminded him of his present condition.
“Good evening, Agent Tagawa. Welcome home, sir.” Keith’s personal AI unit said as Keith stepped inside his seventh floor apartment and hung his coat beside the door.
Keith was about to respond when he noticed a strange, pungent odor hanging in the air.
He wrinkled his nose and took another sniff. Yep, there it was again. And although he couldn’t quite place it, he had the strangest feeling that he’d smelled this somewhere before.
“Thank you, Mac … ” he replied, taking stock of his surroundings.
The blinds in the living room were active, but he had done that before he’d left, so there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary there. His recliner was right where he’d left it, and so was the couch.
Wait a second. The couch …
Keith drew his sidearm and took a step closer. Yes, it had
definitely
been sat on—and recently too. Plus the cushions were all out of place, almost like someone had been ...
hugging them?
His brow furrowed, and he cocked his head to one side, thoroughly baffled—if only for a moment.
He walked forward and bent over the dark gray sofa, inhaling deeply. Instantly his nostrils were filled with the overwhelming scent, and he was forced to withdraw. There was no doubt about it. Whoever had sat on his sofa was
definitely
the source of the smell.
He shifted his attention to the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Wine?” he said out loud, now more confused then ever. For there, sitting on the table beside a pair of
wineglasses, was an unopened bottle of red wine.
Hmm. Two glasses … Whoever was here was either expecting company or had company with them,
he thought, eyeing one of the polished glasses.
Two
suspects.
Keith looked up toward the kitchen at his neatly organized wine collection, half expecting to see that one of the expensive bottles was missing. But it looked as if every bottle was accounted for. Which meant that whoever had been in his apartment had brought their own wine.
Keith adjusted his grip on the handgun and scrutinized the wine and sofa with renewed intensity, when his ears detected a small noise coming from somewhere off to his left.
That sounds like water running.
His eyes drifted through the apartment to the closed bathroom door and the thin wisps of steam curling up from under it.
Slowly he crept toward the door with his pistol held stiffly at the ready.
“Okay buddy, that’s it,” he whispered, reluctantly preparing to kick down his own door, “you’ve broken into the
wrong
apartment.”
Keith raised his gun, stepped back, and would have proceeded had the intruder in the shower not started singing at that very moment.
He couldn’t quite make out the tune, but he could tell from the voice that the intruder was a woman. Quietly he holstered his firearm and placed his ear to the locked door. There was something eerily familiar about the woman’s warbling voice ...
“Mac!” he hissed, “identify intruder!”
“Right away, sir. Intruder identified as Miss Bridget Chavé.”
He smacked
his open hand against his forehead in exasperation.
“Can’t she just leave me along for a
few
hours? Is that too much to ask?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Mac replied, his holographic body appearing near the sofa.
“How did she even get
in
here?” Keith hissed, eyeing the transparent image of his suit-clad AI unit.
“Forgive me, sir. But ... she told me you were expecting her. My polygraph subroutines detected no increase in her heart rate or breathing, so I assumed she was telling me the truth.”
“Well, you assumed wrong,” Keith muttered, rubbing his temple with his index finger. “Did she say
why
she was coming up here?”
“Yes. She informed me that you would be returning home from the hospital today, and that she wanted to celebrate with you.”
Keith swallowed. “Is that why she’s in my shower?”
“I believe so, sir. I was under the impression that the evening would be pleasant for the both of you, so I informed her when your vehicle left the Unitech complex. At which point she promptly went to “freshen up”. Or at least, that is what she said. Once again, sir, allow me to express my humblest apologies for this horribly unfortunate mistake.”
“If you told her I was coming when I left the complex, then that means she’s been in there for at least a half hour. Which means she’ll
probably
be coming out any minute now!”
Mac raised a holographic eyebrow. “Yes, I believe so, sir.”
Keith grimaced and hurried past the shimmering blue figure into his bedroom, returning with a pillow and blanket tucked into the crook of his arm.
“Where are you going, sir?” Mac asked, as Keith moved toward the door.
“Back to the office,” Keith replied sourly. He turned back to the AI unit. “Mac, I need you to do something for me.”
“Of course, sir. How may I be of service?”
“I need you to
stall
!”
“Stall, sir?” Mac replied, sounding confused.
“Yes, stall! When she comes out, tell her I had some last minute paperwork to do and I had to go back to the office.”
“I do believe that Miss Bridget will wait for you, sir.”
Keith sighed in exasperation. “Then let her wait! Just don’t let her follow me!”
“What do you expect me to do if she tries, sir?”
“You’re a top-of-the-line artificial intelligence, Mac! Use your imagination!”
“But—”
Keith closed the door behind him, effectively silencing whatever argument the AI had formulated. As far as he was concerned, Bridget was Mac’s headache now.
Keith hurried down the hall, entered the first elevator he could get to, and punched the button for the parking garage. The truth of the matter was that, given the choice between spending a long sleepless night in an office chair and spending a long sleepless night with Bridget Chavé, he would choose the office chair every time, hands down.
Chapter 19
Luna leaned back on the sofa, rested her chin in the palm of her cupped hands, and stared intently at the twenty-three-year-old news recording playing on her APD’s tiny holographic screen.
For the past three evenings, she’d done nothing but sift through Ada’s archive of downloaded information, closely studying every file and video.
In that time she’d managed to uncover more about Jack Anderson, his family, and Unitech’s fledgling years than she’d ever expected. She had seen Mr. Anderson transform from a young man with little more than a dream and the clothes on his back to the founder of a multi-billion dollar organization.
She switched off the holo-screen then gently rubbed her aching eyes.
“Are you all right, Miss Luna?” Ada asked, her calm clear voice coming through the headset’s tiny speakers.
Luna screwed her eyes shut, counted to three, and then opened them, watching the blurry world around her slowly come into focus. “Yeah, I’m okay. … ”
“That is a relief.” Ada replied, “I was 2.6 seconds away from informing you that you had violated nearly every one of this device’s health and safety regulations.”
“Really? How long was I watching those vids?” She asked, checking her watch.
“You’ve been using this device for nearly four hours,” Ada replied just as Luna’s eyes focused enough for her to make out her antique timepiece’s digital readout.
“Good grief—it’s almost ten-o-clock!”
“It is indeed. Would you like to watch the news tonight, Miss Luna?”
“Umm … sure. I think I’m going to go whip up something to eat first. But you can go ahead and turn it on.”
She removed the all-purpose device from her ear and plugged it into its stand. The lights flickered for a split second then Ada’s holographic figure materialized on the sofa beside her, brushed the wrinkles out of her shimmering blue clothes, and proceeded to surf through the local channels via her wireless link until she found the late-night news.
Luna hadn’t noticed how hungry she really was until she actually started cooking. Now that the prospect of food had been laid out before her, it was all she could do to keep from drooling.
I guess it’s probably a good thing I live alone. If anyone else saw me now, they’d probably think I was rabid or something,
she thought, smiling wryly. Just then, her apartment’s phone began to ring.
Wordlessly she turned and glared at Ada, who met her gaze and identified the source of the incoming call.
“Miss Luna, you have a phone call from Miss Bridget. Do you want me to answer?”
Bridget? Why is she calling me
now
?
Luna thought sourly, and then she wondered if maybe it was an emergency. Why else would Bridget be calling her so late at night? All at once Luna’s mind began to come up with all the worst-case scenarios. Maybe Bridget had been in a terrible accident, or maybe she was being held hostage by terrorists …
“Of course I want you to answer it!” she squeaked, feeling as if she would burst into tears if she didn’t hear Bridget’s voice immediately.
Ada activated the apartment’s built-in phone, and Bridget’s bubbly voice gushed out of the speakers.
“Hey, Luna! You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. What’s wrong?” Luna replied, still expecting the to hear the worst.
“Oh … not much. Just wanted to talk … you know?”
Luna clenched her fists in annoyance, silently grateful that her friend couldn’t see her enraged face.
“I’m eating
dinner
, Bridget,” Luna said, her words precise and edged.
To no great surprise her verbal salvo missed the mark completely.
“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t mind if you eat while we talk. But thanks for asking me anyway.”
“All right, I’ll do that. If you hear a lot of loud chewing, it’s probably me fighting off starvation. But don’t let
that
bother you.”
Luna motioned for Ada to turn down the TV, then placed her dinner on a tray and walked back to the couch while the sound of Bridget’s laughter reverberated around the room.
“Okay, so what did you want to talk about?” Luna asked, plopping down on the sofa.
“Well … it’s about Keith. I … I think he’s avoiding me.”
“What makes you think he’s avoiding you?” she asked through a mouthful of food, trying her best to banish her grudging thoughts. Even though she could be annoyingly spacey and sappy at times, Bridget was Luna’s friend.
“Well … he never came back to his apartment last night. And I didn’t see him all day today. Not even in the cafeteria.” Bridget sighed, paused for a moment, and then continued, “I was getting worried, so I called the Agency and asked for him. And you know what they told me?”
“No, what’d they tell you?” Luna replied.
“They told me that he was
unavailable
! My Keith, unavailable!” Bridget’s voice cracked and was instantly replaced by the sound of loud sobbing. She struggled to speak, “What … what if there’s another woman? What if he’s
cheating
on me? I know there must be something going on—otherwise he would have come home last night … ”
“Um … Bridget?” Luna asked, “What exactly were you doing in Keith’s apartment?”
“Nothing … I was … waiting for him. I wanted to throw him a welcome home party … ” Bridget sniffled.
“You were the only one at this party, weren’t you?”
“He was supposed to be there, too … ”
Luna sighed. “Okay, Bridget. I think you might be right. He
is
avoiding you. But I don’t think it’s because he’s cheating.”
“What do you mean?”
“Honestly? I think Keith is avoiding you because you’re coming on a bit too strong … you know?” Luna spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “I mean, it sounds to me like he’s really uncomfortable with all the attention you’ve been giving him.”
Bridget hesitated—something Luna had never experienced in all their years of friendship. After almost a minute of silence, Bridget spoke, “So … what should I do?”
“I think you should probably consider taking a step back. Give him some space for a while.”
The moment her words left her mouth, Luna braced herself for an outburst. But instead, with a heavy sigh Bridget said, “You’re probably right. Even though I don’t want to admit it … you’re right.”
“Do you want to get together tomorrow?” Luna offered, sensing her friend’s distress.
“Yeah? I would actually like that a lot. How about like, lunch or something?”
“That sounds good to me,” Luna replied, smiling. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We can talk more then.”
“All right. See you then, girl. Enjoy your dinner.”
There was a muted click and the line went dead.
Luna finished off what little remained of her dinner then got up, brushed the crumbs of her pants, picked up her tray and walked into the kitchen to clean up the mess she’d made during her rushed cooking. She set her tray down on the counter then began the daunting task of returning the various items scattered around the kitchen to their proper places. Once everything was put away she rinsed her dishes and was in the process of putting them in the dishwasher, when a blurb on the TV about the two missing employees from the Unitech plant caught her attention.
She turned around just in time to catch the late-night anchorman’s final words before the station cut for a commercial break—much to her frustration. The break gave her some time to think about what Mark had told her about the two men that he’d seen being led away by Leon and his gang.
She wasn’t certain the two men Mark had mentioned were in fact Raúl Sanchez and Frank Travis. But his descriptions of them and the fact that he’d seen them around the same time the two employees first disappeared was too much of a coincidence for her to ignore.
Luna tapped her foot impatiently as the commercial break dragged on and on. Finally she decided to just forget the news report and research the two men herself.
“Hey, Ada,” Luna said, clicking off the TV.