Sideswiped (Kindle Single) (The Peri Reed Chronicles)
Author: Harrison, Kim
Date: 2015-08-10
Publisher: Pocket Star

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CHAPTER

ONE

There was a mouth-breather four feet behind him, and it was starting to bug Silas. Shifting on the hard-backed chair, he hunched lower over the scratched testing tablet, trying to concentrate on his final exam. But someone was tapping their stylus, and another kept changing their answer, the click, click, click distracting. The sighs were incessant, and the frustrated tension rose with the sour smell of sweat in the high-ceilinged room, ornate from a more elegant past.

Silas sat back, stretching his wide shoulders, feeling the fabric of his white collared shirt pull. His suit coat lay carefully across the seat in front of him, the empty instructor podium a good six rows beyond that. Most of the desks were occupied, but he didn’t know anyone, having been shoved in here with an undergrad class to take his final because the security was good and it was easier than arranging a proctor just for him.

Outside, through the row of glass windows high above head height, he could hear the shouts of someone on the commons celebrating the end of their classes, but in here, it was all nervous tension. Grimacing, he bent back over his exam, feeling cramped. It wasn’t that the station was small. He was just a big guy.

The activity of synaptic linkages able to resonate to time can be directly influenced by: diet, training, trauma, synaptic fatigue, ambient noise, drugs. Check all that apply. Silas used his stylus to check all of them, then undid diet, though he’d swear his undergrad students did better after lunch. He just hadn’t had an opportunity to prove it yet, and the last time he’d challenged his instructor, he’d lost a full grade.

Bored, he slumped to stretch his long legs out under the desk, trying to decide how much trouble he wanted to make. Head lolling, he squinted at the glowing orb on the ceiling. It was a bright red, indicating all incoming and outgoing communications were being blocked. Opti loved its gadgets, almost as much as it loved catching students trying to get around them—encouraged the activity, even as punishment for getting caught was harsh and swift.

Smirking, he sat up and tapped the diet icon to add it. He’d contest it if anyone gave him flak. He had only one more semester with which to finish his thesis, and then he’d have two sets of letters after his name. Silas’s smile faded. He was going to lose her after graduation. Summer was more than a girlfriend. Four years of shared sushi over a lab table and informal challenges at the shooting range had turned into a quiet intimacy he couldn’t bear to lose. He felt good when he could make her laugh, and she brought his frustrated turmoil to calm when the work was bad. Even better, she was the only woman whose height kept him from looking like an ape beside her. He needed her, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

But once working, drafters seldom maintained long-term romantic relationships with anyone outside of their anchor partners. Come this fall, she’d be assigned her first real anchor, and it would be over.

With a sharp crack and cascading tinkle, one of the upper windows shattered. Silas looked up, barely having time to recognize the manhole-size drone before it careened into a light fixture and ricocheted toward him.

“Look out!” someone shouted, and then it struck him, knocking his head back.

“God bless it!” he exclaimed, hand to his forehead as the drone hit the floor and slid to a halt. The Opti logo caught the light, but it was a safe bet the drone had been misappropriated.

“Hey, are you all right?” someone asked, but no one moved, afraid if they did, their exam would be invalidated.

“Yeah.” Silas grimaced at the smear of blood on his hand. On the floor, the drone hummed, clicked, and stopped working. There was a small crackling at the window as a slight, petite woman vaulted into the broken frame. A remote in her hand, she crouched there, assessing the students looking up at her. Facial-recognition deterrent caked her face, making her eyes black holes and her chin more narrow than it probably was. Standing up in the broken window, she tucked the remote into the waistband of her skintight black athletic wear, then jumped the five feet to the floor, landing lightly to look like she was a sexy black cat.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice surprisingly low for such a small frame. “Be out of your hair in a sec.”

Silas leaned back, his chair creaking. Irritation and anger swept over him, and he crossed his iron-pumping arms across his chest as she wove her way through the stunned class, arms swinging confidently.

He didn’t recognize her under the face paint, but her hair was short and black, and her chin angular. She was athletic without being blocky, with a narrow waist, ample hips, and a small chest. Her arrogant poise said she was in the field agent program. His best friend, Allen, could strut like that, and Summer had that same undeniable grace.

He cracked his knuckles as she stopped at his desk, her eyes going to the swelling bump on his forehead. “Sorry about that,” she said as she scooped up the drone. Her fingernail polish was metallic, the latest rage. Her eyes were hazel, and her safety glasses were Gucci. He hadn’t known they did safety glasses, and he made a mental note to look into it. Clearly the woman had money, had had it her entire life, by the look of it—too much to be here learning how to be a weapon.

Silas clenched his hand to hide the blood on it. “You going to draft to fix it?” he asked belligerently, and she smiled to show small, very white teeth, clearly pleased he’d recognized her status.

“You’re awfully big to want me to kiss your boo-boo away. You’ll heal.” She leaned over his tablet, clearly curious as to what he was taking. Slim finger jabbing out, she changed the icon of diet back to false. “Trust me on this. It’s secondary, not direct.”

“Hey!” he exclaimed when the tablet’s rim became red, recognizing it wasn’t him and shutting down. “You just invalidated my exam!”

She winced, the tips of her hair swinging as she turned to a sudden noise in the hall. “Sorry. I didn’t know they were biometric. Ours aren’t.”

Taking a running hop, she raced to the broken window. The class erupted in noise, and Silas stood, gasping when someone stuck out a leg and tripped her. The woman tried to recover by diving into a roll, but there were too many desks and she slammed into one, dazed as her arms and legs sprawled. Someone laughed, and Silas’s face burned in anger.

The door to the room was yanked open, and a professionally dressed small Asian man and an older woman strode in. Seeing his professor, Silas sighed at his defunct test.

“Someone pick her up. Who is that?” Professor Woo demanded, and then Silas stiffened as vertigo spilled through him. The light streaming through the windows flashed blue, and the shock of an utter absence of sound shook him.

She’s drafting, he thought as time was yanked back five seconds.

With a startling flicker, the light returned to a warm yellow. The door to the hall was still shut, and he was again sitting at his desk. People were shouting, oblivious that they were replaying the last five seconds in time.

“Look out!” he exclaimed as he stood—not knowing why—but she’d remember both timelines until they meshed and her psyche rubbed them both out.

Giving him a surprised grin, she leapt over the foot even before it was extended. Like an exotic rock climber, she jumped for a handhold, using the decorative trim to swarm up the wall until she reached the broken window frame—just as the door was again yanked open.

Brow furrowed in anger, his instructor walked in, the small man silent this time, hands on his hips as he scanned for whoever had drafted.

And then the light flashed red as time meshed. Silas took a slow breath, habit making him scan the room for a response, but clearly everyone but his professor was oblivious to what had happened. Even the woman herself had forgotten what she’d done, only knowing by a chunk of missing memory that she’d made a mistake that needed to be rubbed out. She met Silas’s eyes, winking at him before she dropped down. Gone.

Unclenching his thick hands, Silas looked at his defunct exam. No one in here was a potential anchor. Not even a blip of déjà vu. Opti’s students went on to the FBI, CIA, and mall security. It was only the top one percent who continued in the program to become Opti agents, and then one percent of them became the gods and goddesses of time.

“Silas.”

He ignored Professor Woo as he came forward, depressed at the thought of Summer and their grand, sophomoric plans. He could have been an anchor, being good at recognizing drafted timelines and even better at fixing them back into a drafter’s mind. Too good, actually, to risk in the field. Blaming it on his size, they shoved him into theoretical, where he excelled in meshing the surety of electronics to the vagaries of the human mind. He already had one doctorate degree in psychology, gained before he found out he had the ability to be an anchor. Earning another in drafter studies was easy, seeing as he was adding to the technologies as he went.

“Silas.” Professor Woo was closer this time, and, seeing his professor’s inquiring glance, Silas shrugged. He didn’t know every drafter, just most.

Scowling, Professor Woo turned to the instructor who’d come in with him. “Go see if you can find out who that was,” he said, and, nodding, the older woman paced quickly back into the hall.

Students were beginning to stand, questions rising, and Professor Woo held up a hand. “Sit down. Sit down!” he said in perfect midwestern English. “Or all your tablets will be invalidated.” Eyebrows high, he looked at Silas’s red-framed tablet. “Doctor?” he questioned.

“She touched my tablet,” Silas said sourly, wondering if he could find out who she was that way.

Professor Woo squinted in concern as he pulled a handkerchief from his suit coat pocket and handed it to Silas. “It looks like she touched your forehead, too.”

Silas dabbed at it, relieved the blood had slowed.

Taking up Silas’s tablet, his professor typed in his instructor code and the flexible screen went dark. “You can retake it tomorrow,” he said as he rolled the tablet into a tube and tucked it away.

Annoyed, Silas glanced at the window. There was shouting coming in from beyond it, but he doubted the woman would need to draft again. She was good, exceptionally so, and probably a freshman, since he hadn’t seen her before. “Why?” he said, taking his coat as Professor Woo handed it to him. “Can’t you reset it? It was just a bump.”

But his professor shook his head and gestured at the door. The instructor had returned and was addressing the class, trying to get them settled and explaining how they were going to adjust the time for the interruption.

“I was coming to get you,” Professor Woo said as he put a small hand on Silas’s shoulder and got him moving toward the door. “Professor Milo’s assistant took a bad hit this morning in training and broke his wrist. They need someone to monitor the slick-suits in his finals. Now.”

Professor Milo? Silas’s pace slowed to a halt. The man was a prejudiced prick. “Can’t you get one of my students—?”

Smiling, Professor Woo shook his head and pushed open the door. Echoes from the hallway slipped in. “Busy with finals or gone for the summer, and no one needs extra credit that badly. Just do it, Silas,” the smaller man coaxed. “You never know when you’re going to need a favor. And besides, you might get more data for your thesis if someone drafts.”

The chances of that were pretty good, and, feeling the pinch of avarice, Silas let the testing door shut behind him with a small click. The expansive hallway was open to the courtyard at both ends, and he looked for any activity, seeing nothing. Getting more data would be worth it, and he went still as he remembered that tidy little draft, wishing she’d been wearing a slick-suit at the time so he could have seen her reach. It bothered him that he didn’t know her by sight, but he’d been letting his students do most of the slick-suit fittings lately, and so he didn’t know everyone anymore.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he said, and Professor Woo brightened, slapping him across the shoulders. “Where are they?”

“Thank you, Silas.” His professor reached into his suit coat’s inner pocket for an envelope. “If you’d said no, I would’ve had to do it, and I don’t know how to fix the suits if there’s a problem.”

Silas took the extended envelope. There were too many eyes and ears in Opti’s academy to risk saying aloud where this year’s drafter/anchor testing was, not when every student vied for any advantage.

“He’d like you there by eleven tonight to set up. You’re a lifesaver,” Professor Woo said. Then, giving Silas a last nod, he turned and strode briskly back to the testing room.

“Lifesaver,” Silas grumbled, not agreeing as he opened the paper. Sighing, he folded it back up and stuffed it away.

God bless it, I’m going to have to wear my good tie.

CHAPTER

TWO

Electronic dance music thumped through the walls. It made the swelling on Silas’s head throb as he sat in the club’s cramped security office. The outdated wood paneling and metal furniture from the ’90s made him loath to touch anything, and he twitched his new Dolce & Gabbana suit coat clear of the cigarette burns and chip crumbs.

“Skinny-man models,” he muttered as his thick fingers skated competently across his tablet. You had four, maybe six years of lanky adolescence, and then it was gone. Why were all the models, and therefore all the suits, stuck there? Real men had shoulders and arms.

Thinking he was talking about the meat market/dance club visible through the club’s grainy monitors, Professor Milo’s secondary assistant chuckled. “Me, I like eating,” the man said, casting envious glances at Silas’s state-of-the-art glass tablet spilling data in a crystalline, unending stream. Silas had justified getting it because of his work, but the truth of it was he just liked having the best.

The semitransparent data phased out, and Silas thunked the tablet against the desk to phase it back in. Even if it doesn’t work all the time.

Behind them, Professor Milo cleared his throat, and Silas focused on the biofeedback data rather than the screens. Per tradition, the anchor/drafter finals were not on Opti’s training floor but in a real-life situation involving people oblivious to the fact. The electronic dance club was loud, noisy, and rife with distractions: the perfect microcosm of reality.

By rights, he shouldn’t be here, seeing as he was close to two of the participants; Allen and he had been friends for years, and he and Summer had been living together for nearly as long. But it was still an exercise, meaning they had light pistols and slick-suits under their clubbing attire. Since he had designed both the suits and the basics behind the light pistols, he was the logical choice to be in the cramped back room monitoring them. A room far too small for someone to have eaten garlic bread at dinner, he thought, wincing.

Allen’s and Summer’s goal was a four-piece ribbon-tied box of chocolates sitting at a distant table, already in the possession of the first team on site, but Silas was tempted to text Allen to bring back a handful of mints from behind the bar instead. Possessing the chocolates was one thing; getting out with them was another.

The dish of rusted paperclips on the desk before him rattled in time with the music, and Silas moved it to a stained coaster. Satisfied with the data coming in from the four students’ slick-suits, Silas shifted his weight on the rolling office chair to reach for his gum. The plastic crackled as he punched a square out, then he handed it around in a show of friendly impartiality. Professor Milo brusquely waved him off, but his assistant took one with a sheepish, knowing smile.

“Thanks,” the assistant whispered as he scooted closer, his eyes on the club’s grainy monitors. “You don’t know who the blonde is, do you? Damn, she looks good.”

Silas smirked, his fingers adroitly flashing over his tablet to log in the incoming data. Summer looked more than good in the flowing slitted skirt and blouse, the slick-suit a glistening hint under it from her neck to wrists to ankles, her hair cut to a short, safe length. She was an Amazon goddess in the spinning lights, sipping her orange juice and flirting as she waited for Allen to get into position before making a play for the box of chocolates. “That’s my girlfriend.”

The technician jerked in surprise. “Oh,” he said, eyes flicking over Silas’s iron-pumping physique. “Lucky you.”

“You got that right.” Contentment pulled him straighter as he checked his tablet. Allen’s pulse was up, but Summer was an even metronome. Karen and Heidi across the dance floor were elevated as well, but that was not unexpected, seeing as they had the chocolate and were on the defensive.

He settled back, not liking the way the walls were rattling. He’d be getting no data for his thesis tonight. No one was going to draft—not with two teams on site. The chance someone might draft within a draft was too great. Double-drafting wasn’t fatal, but it hurt. No, tonight would be decided by wits and the light pistols they all had, each shooting a harmless stream of particles that immobilized the section of slick-suit it impacted. It mimicked a gunshot, and Silas didn’t like that Opti had taken his synaptic isolation technology and turned it into a gun.

A slow chime of warning from his tablet drew him forward. One of the resistors on Allen’s suit wasn’t reading right. After adjusting it, Silas leaned back again, his thick arms crossed over his chest as he tried to hide his concern that Professor Milo lurked behind him. It made him feel as if he were on trial as well.

No one liked his theory that drafting time wasn’t moving back as much as it was sideways. He’d had to invent most of the instruments to gather his data, and the idea that Professor Milo might cut his funding before he had the chance to prove his theory was a real possibility. He’d been at it for six years and had nothing to show but a handful of gadgets. If not for the versatility of the slick-suits and light pistols, his funding would have been cut years ago.

The sensor on his tablet began pulsating again. Frowning, Silas toggled it back into normal range.

At the bar, Allen squinted through his thick black plastic safety glasses at one of the club’s cameras, his long face tight with irritation as he hit a button on his phone. Silas’s tablet dinged, and he thumbed the connection open. “What’s the deal?” Allen said, the music half a second off from what was thumping through the walls.

Silas fitted an earpiece and took his tablet off speaker. “I’m reading excessive feedback. You’re not feeling it?” he said softly.

Allen pushed the sleeve of his brightly patterned shirt up to show the phasing fabric of his slick-suit. Lanky and thin, he didn’t need to get his suits specially tailored—apart from shortening the hems an inch or two. But he doesn’t look as good in them, either, Silas thought smugly. Allen was too casual and scar-marked from countless BMX accidents to fit Opti’s old image of the polished, sophisticated agent, especially when next to his partner, Summer, who did. But that was probably why they’d fast-tracked him. And why they keep me in the labs, Silas thought, his mood tarnishing.

“Knock it off,” Allen complained, his knobby hands pushing his sleeve back down. “You keep phasing it up like that, you’re going to put my arm to sleep.”

Summer’s throaty voice eased from the tiny speaker as she slipped behind Allen and tousled his short black hair. “You mind getting off the air, Silas? We’re working here.”

“Hey, you called me.” Silas smiled as the connection ended, watching her through the monitor as she made her way to the dance floor, people moving either to get out of her way or to intercept her, depending upon what they thought their chances were. At the table across the room, Heidi and Karen finished their drinks fast. First on the scene did not translate into getting out with the take.

But Silas’s brow furrowed when he spotted another drafter/anchor team ease past the thick-armed bouncers and half-stoned coat-check girls. His gaze flicked to Professor Milo, and then he hit the icon for Summer’s phone. Almost instantly she answered, her dancing never faltering. “Summer. It’s a gang bang.”

Still slowly making her way to Karen and Heidi’s table, she scanned the club, finding Allen at the bar and nodding him closer. “Shit. Who?”

Silas studied the compact woman coming in and the dark man with the tightly trimmed beard beside her. “Beth and Ethan.” Three drafters on site? What are they thinking?

Professor Milo cleared his throat. Silas’s neck reddened, and he muttered, “What? I’m allowed. I’m their backup.”

The professor leaned forward, his tall, gaunt form looming over him. “Drafters and anchors don’t have backup,” he said as he jabbed Silas’s connection closed. “And you are not their handler. Interfere again, and they fail.”

Chances were good they were going to fail anyway. There were three teams, and only one would walk out with that box of chocolate and the highest grade. Peeved, Silas pushed himself back into the chair, ignoring the six sets of slick-suit data now coming in. Summer touched her ear to show him she’d lost contact before tucking her phone away and laughing at something the man dancing with her had said.

Allen finally reached her, and Summer pointed out Beth and Ethan with a head toss. Silas could tell the instant their eyes met when Allen’s lips curled. Beth and Ethan played without regard to convention or loyalty to any but themselves. The perfect agents.

Heidi and Karen’s biodata were elevated, and as Ethan and Beth began to force their way from the door and through the crowd, Karen grabbed the chocolate, shoving it down her front as Heidi pushed her to the back. All they had to do was get out and it was over. But Opti would never make it that easy.

Summer and Allen had split up, and Silas pushed closer to the monitors. He’d lost Beth and Ethan.

“Everyone down!” he heard faintly through the pulsating walls, and then a scream overshadowed the music.

“There!” Milo’s assistant pointed, and Silas watched through the monitor as Beth shot at the disco ball, sending the light beam ricocheting everywhere with a blinding flash.

Summer dropped. Heart in his throat, Silas looked at her slick-suit data. She was fine—simply getting out of the line of fire. Curling into a ball, she dodged the first flush of panicked, fleeing people as the music thundered. Ethan shoved people aside, trying for a clean shot, shouting in anger when Allen made a good hit and Ethan’s slick-suit flashed white. The tall man dropped, out of the game, paralyzed.

Livid, Beth grabbed her partner’s light pistol before diving out of the way, using a screaming woman as a shield as she made her way across the bar to the back, where a handful of people hammered on the locked back door, Heidi and Karen among them.

“This just got interesting,” Milo said, and Silas grimaced at his tablet. Twelve 911 calls had just gone out, not one of the agents-in-training on site thinking to block them. Even as he watched, three more flashed up. They had five, maybe six minutes. Going to jail would get them a failing grade as well.

“Give me the box and we all get out of here!” Beth shouted, and Karen pushed out from the cowering people. Heidi had reached the door and was working on the lock. She was small and clever, and Silas began to wonder if the all-woman team would make it out.

“As if,” Karen snarled, and then more screaming as she shot at Beth from across the dance floor, scoring on her legs. Beth dropped, paralyzed from the knees down.

The music cut off, and then Allen was on Karen, knocking her out with a front kick. “You kicked her?” Heidi exclaimed, outraged as Allen’s hand rose with the chocolate.

“Summer!” he shouted, throwing it as Heidi slammed a roundhouse into his arm. The chocolate went spinning, and Beth, still somewhat functioning in her half-paralyzed slick-suit, crawled across the dance floor after it, groaning when Summer reached it first.

“Circle out, Allen!” Summer called, but Allen was down, having taken a light beam right to the chest. Pissed, she pointed at Heidi, then at Karen. Ripping open the box of chocolate, she jammed the four pieces in her mouth as she went to help Allen.

Outraged and red-faced, Karen began firing. Summer dove for the protection of the tables, her slick-suit on her right leg going white as she was nicked by a beam. “That’s not fair!” Karen shouted, and Silas rose, his hands spread wide in helplessness as he stood before the monitors, not believing the chaos.

But the thunderous boom of a rifle in close quarters brought Karen up short.

Silas froze, scanning the monitors. A bouncer had gotten to the gun cabinet, a smoking rifle in his hand and bits of ceiling still falling down at his feet.

“No one move!” echoed through the walls, the sound of someone crying suddenly obvious.

“Shit.” Swallowing his gum, Silas bolted to the door, only to be yanked back by Milo’s hand encircling his bicep.

“Sit down.”

“That’s a real gun!” Silas pointed into the club, and Milo flicked his coat aside.

“So is this one,” he said, showing a Glock. “Sit,” he said again. “They should’ve planned for this. Let it play. If they can’t get out of this, they deserve to fail.”

“Fail! What about dying?”

But Milo shook his head in warning, his thin lips pulled back in a sneer. “Sit. Down.”

The dangerous gleam in the professor’s eye was a grim reminder that every one of their instructors had once been an active agent. Silas sat, his big hands clenched. Milo’s assistant was wide-eyed but useless. Summer was out there, her leg paralyzed by his technology. His eyes shifted to his tablet.

The sudden wail of sirens pulled Professor Milo’s attention away, and Silas lunged, toggling the slick-suits’ paralyzation off in one swipe.

“You stupid man!” Milo shouted, and then Silas reeled, his ears ringing when Milo smacked him.

“This isn’t a game!” Silas roared, and he rose in fear when another shot rang out, then another. Beth screamed in pain, then Ethan in anger. Both their data streams spiked.

“Summer!” Silas went for the door, but was brought down as Milo grabbed him about the knees. Silas hit the floor hard, stunned, when another shot rang out. Summer’s cry of outrage cut through him, stopping his heart. Someone else had been shot. Allen or Summer?

“No one shoots my partner!” Summer shouted.

It’s not her.

And then his tablet came alive when someone grabbed ahold of time and yanked it firmly backward.

Silas breathed in blue sparkles, watching the incoming data flow across the screen as it gathered information about the shifting localized gravity, Doppler particles, and the minute shift of light that defined a drafter’s reach. Ethan could draft more than a minute into the past, but he could only physically affect a circular block. Heidi had never exceeded ten seconds, but her reach was a breathtaking mile across. This one had the tight wavelength of Summer, and he suddenly found himself back at the desk instead of flat on the floor.

Milo was bright-eyed with threat. “Think about this, Silas,” he intoned, the retired agent able to recognize the draft as easily as he.

“Every day of my life,” Silas said, and with no more thought, he rabbit-punched the professor.

The man dropped like a stone. Silas turned, again shutting down the slick-suits’ paralyzation. They’d gone back twenty seconds, but every one of them would remember what had happened until time caught up and the drafters forgot. They wouldn’t get shot again.

Suit coat furling, Silas bolted out of the small back room. The smell of spent gunpowder hit him and he recoiled. Allen was standing in the middle of the dance floor, hands raised, as the bouncer aimed the rifle at him, muzzle shaking.

“It’s okay,” Allen said calmly, and Silas exhaled in relief. Summer was safe behind Allen. Ethan and Beth were to one side, Heidi and Karen to the other, protecting the cowering people by the back door. “We’re all okay. Stand down. It was just a little game.”

But the gun went off. Shocked, the bouncer dropped the rifle, shouting, “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!”

Allen fell. Behind him, Summer jerked at the sudden warmth spraying her, her eyes wide in horror as Allen hit the floor with the sodden sound of a wet bag.

“No!” Silas shouted, and he saw Allen’s eyes, full of pain as he realized his death was moments away. They were in a draft. To draft within it would cause them all pain.

But Silas looked at Summer, nodding. “Do it,” Beth said, grimacing, and Karen, gripping Heidi’s arm, nodded as well.

Summer took a shaky breath. Once more, blue sparkles spilled down from the spinning disco lights, racing over Silas’s already overstimulated nerves like poison. He breathed them out, and he shook, catching his balance as he again found himself just outside the back office’s door.

“Excuse me,” Silas said loudly to distract the bouncer, ducking when the frazzled man turned, the rifle going off. The shot was an instant of warmth past his face, and behind Silas, Professor Milo grunted in pain.

Allen lunged, bringing the bouncer down. Bellowing in anger, the man fought back, but there were seven of them and one of him.

And then time caught up and smacked Silas across the head.

With a simultaneous cry of pain, the students fell away from the incensed bouncer. Silas reached for the bar, knees giving way as pain blossomed from inside, fighting to find a way out of his skull through his eyes. Gasping, he leaned over the bar and panted, trying to keep from throwing up. He hadn’t been bitch-slapped by a double-draft for years.

“Yep. Still hurts,” he groaned. Someone was throwing up. Someone else was crying hysterically. But it wasn’t anyone he knew, so he didn’t care.

“Get that rifle!” Milo shouted, and Silas looked up, smiling weakly at Allen helping Summer up off the floor. She was pale but unhurt. Allen was alive—he’d replace her memory. That’s what an anchor did. It had been worth it. Everyone had agreed.

“Dr. Silas Denier,” Milo said sarcastically, and Silas’s stomach lurched when the angry man spun him around and Silas fell back against the bar. A wet, red stain spread from the professor’s shoulder. He’d been shot, but clearly it wasn’t life-threatening. Sirens were sounding louder in the nearby distance, and people were leaving, racing for the door. “I told you not to interfere,” the professor said as he roughly motioned for his students to get out as well. “This was a test.”

“Yeah?” Peeved, Silas used his coat to wipe his brow. The Band-Aid on his forehead caught, and he pulled it off, having forgotten it was there. “You can shove your test up your ass, sir. These are my friends.”

Milo pushed into his space, cheeks red. “It was a test. And you just failed. You, Summer, Allen, and everyone out here.”

“What!” Anger gave Silas the strength to stand upright. “Me? I wasn’t being tested. And why flunk them? I’m the one that hit you. Is it because they didn’t let one of their own die? Double-drafting isn’t grounds for failure. It just hurts like hell. If anything, you should commend them for ending this with all parties alive!”

“You didn’t fail because Summer drafted within a draft,” Milo said. “You didn’t even fail because you hit me. You failed because you didn’t adhere to the spirit of the test.”

Silas went still, seeing the understanding in the eyes of Karen and Heidi as they limped past him, supporting each other like fallen soldiers. “Is that so,” he said dryly.

“You were here to gather data for your thesis and monitor the slick-suits,” Milo said, jerking Silas’s attention back with a hard jab to his chest. “You interfered. They failed. Get out.”

Summer waited for him by the door. Allen leaned heavily on the wall beside her.

“I said get out!” the professor shouted when Silas turned on a heel to go back into the office for his tablet.

“I forgot my data,” he said as he passed Professor Milo, the man quivering in rage. The professor had not liked him ever since Silas had proved one of his theories wrong in his freshman year.

Silas looped his arm in Summer’s as they crossed the threshold, and she tucked her head against his shoulder, their pace matching perfectly. He breathed in her scent, fighting the shakes. He could have lost her. But he hadn’t. Her ability had saved not just herself, but everyone out there. How can I live with her doing this every day if I’m not the one at her side anchoring her? Keeping her safe?

“I think we won, Allen,” she said as they got into the waiting Opti van with the other drafters and anchors, all nursing migraines the size of Montana. “I got the chocolates out.”

She’d eaten them.

Silas looked up, seeing the rueful nods and rolling eyes of the students around them. Allen chuckled, the sound ending in a groan, and Silas smiled, even if it did hurt.

Failed? Not yet. They had three days until graduation, and time was on their side.

CHAPTER

THREE

The bar’s thermostat was set blessedly low, and Summer had used her womanly charms to get them the large round table in the back, right under the air-conditioning vent. It wasn’t their usual place, but with seven of them, the bar’s usual community college clientele ignored them after their cursory assessment of “academy asshats.” Word had gotten out that they had been responsible for the campus-wide migraine every drafter, anchor, and the retired-agent staff had endured last night. Being out of sight was more than prudent.

Silas licked his fingers clean of the last of the wings; he’d been starving after the headache-instigated fast. His glass tablet was a soft glow before him as it scrolled through his most recent data, and he meticulously cleaned his fingers with the Handi Wipe that Summer had found him. The noise from the bar, full on a Friday night, was a pleasant background, and he could almost ignore the electric country the place seemed to be stuck on.

Across from him, Karen and Heidi were working on their second glass of red wine and a bowl of gluten-free crisps. Ethan and Beth were to his right, their beverage and snack of choice being beer and wings. Allen was a dangerously quiet lump to his left. Summer was at the bar getting food and solicitations for her phone number. It had been almost twenty-four hours, but everything was still fresh and raw, seeing as Heidi, Ethan, and Summer had only recently recovered their missing twenty seconds. Migraines prevented their defrags until this afternoon.

“Can we just forget about it for tonight?” Heidi said, trying to coax Karen into a better mood. “And get your hand out of that bowl before you put on ten pounds,” she added.

Lips pressed, Karen shoved the bowl to the center of the table. “As far as I’m concerned, it was a major screwup and we deserve to have to repeat the test.” Karen slumped in her chair, staring at the bowl. The woman was a rail. Ten pounds would look good on her.

Elbows on the table, Ethan tipped his bottle up and took a swig. “They don’t run them again for another six months. I checked,” he said, wiping a drop from his tidy beard.

Allen stirred. “I’m not waiting another six months to graduate.”

A collective sigh sent guilt through Silas. Maybe hitting Professor Milo had been a mistake, but that paled in comparison to the professor taking a bullet in the rewrite. That Silas might end up out on his ear—irreplaceable skills and techniques aside—would be a real concern if half the administrating body hadn’t wanted to punch the distasteful man on more than one occasion. Let them die. Bullshit. He had a feeling his punishment simply hadn’t been decided yet. They’d probably put him in charge of the freshman drafters, every one of them a maddening mix of justifiable arrogance and insecurity.

He was guiltily grateful that no one at the table blamed him, even if it was his actions that led to their failure. It had been their mistakes that put him in the position to have to make that decision, but no one wanted a classmate to die.

“Six months,” Karen groaned, pulling the bowl back to herself. “Our lease is up in two weeks. Silas, can we crash with you and Summer?”

“No.” Silas’s eyes went to Summer as she laughed, the tone telling him she was trying to diffuse a situation at the bar. Seeing someone standing a smidgen too close to her, he put on his leave-my-girl-alone face, hunching his shoulders to look more massive when she cheerfully pointed him out, the ribbon that had been around the chocolates now in her hair. Beside him, Allen chuckled as the student’s face twitched and he turned away.

“I’m not waiting another six months to graduate,” Allen repeated, pushing his glasses back up his long nose.

Ethan set his beer down hard. “You have another choice? It’s not as if we can long-draft back and try again.”

No, not yet, anyway. Frowning, Silas dropped his gaze to the data he’d gotten from Summer’s double-draft. There had been an unexpected sink of gravity paralleling the secondary Doppler shift. He wasn’t sure if it validated his theory that drafters were creating a temporary, parallel universe when they drafted, then yanking that created pocket of parallel existence into the current one, in effect allowing a reboot of time. If that was true, drafting back further in time was possible—apart from the massive damage it would do to the drafter performing it.

Silas hit the PROCEED key to start the data-compiling, and the screen went clear to conserve power. Under it, the table was scratched with initials in a heart, and Silas’s lips twitched. “I wouldn’t do anything different if I could long-draft,” he said.

“I would.” Ethan’s jaw was tight as he looked at Allen in accusation. From across the table, Karen and Heidi clinked glasses and downed their drinks.

Allen raised a hand in placation. “We all would, but they’d still fail us. Professor Milo is right. We treated it like a game, not reality.”

A smile crossed Silas’s face, his psychology training coming to the forefront. It never failed to amaze him how tooth-and-nail they could be with each other until one of their own was threatened, and then there was no doubt of their loyalty to each other. But then again, Opti took steps to foster that kind of behavior.

“It was a game.” Silas slid down the bench as Summer approached with a plate of fried vegetables. “They dress you up in training suits and give you guns that don’t hurt anyone, then set you all against each other to fetch a box of chocolate. They aren’t treating it seriously, either.”

“They are now,” Ethan said as he held up his hand to show the silver band around his wrist. Silas was the only one at the table without one. It had a tracking chip in it, a product of their probation. The only reason Silas was exempt was because they knew he’d find a way to get it off, and then everyone would know, when he shared the information.

“I’m going to lodge a formal protest,” Allen said as he glumly twisted the band around his wrist before hiding it behind his sleeve. “Who do I go to for that?”

Ethan snorted as Heidi looked into the bottom of her wineglass. “Milo,” she said softly.

An odd sensation of protection and pride pinged against Silas’s thoughts as Summer’s tall, willowy frame eased past Allen and easily shoved him down so she could sit beside Silas. Allen went without complaint, happy to be at her other side, if not the focus of her immediate attentions. The plate of fried vegetables steamed, and she wiggled closer to Silas, touching almost his entire body’s length. The scent of her hair was everywhere, and he put an arm around and behind her simply to maintain their balance.

“Anyone want some?” she asked as she handed Silas the second pair of chopsticks, and a mild negative response rose up.

She smiled as their eyes met, but a faint look of panic in her eyes made him feel as if it was ending. She was there, warm beside him, but they both knew time would pull them apart. She needed him as much as he needed her.

“Maybe we can get extra credit,” Allen said, eyes on a breaded pepper.

Karen sat back from the table in disgust. “Dude. He got shot. He’s not going to give us extra credit. Besides, this isn’t high school. We pay the price and move on.”

“No!” Allen protested, angry now. “I won’t do nothing. There’s got to be a way to fix this.”

Heidi shot Karen a tired look, and the taller woman sat up. “Okay, I can see where this is going,” Karen said. “You can count me and Heidi out of whatever cack-brained idea you have in that head of yours.”

Allen pushed his glasses back up his narrow nose and glared. “Hey! I don’t even have the idea yet. Let me come up with one before you diss it.”

Summer laughed as she angled a fried broccoli between her teeth. “Does it involve a thermonuclear device like your last idea?” she asked around her full mouth.

“That was a good idea!” Allen protested, ears red.

“I can’t afford another screwup,” Ethan said.

“Me, either,” Beth agreed, and Allen’s expression darkened.

Summer leaned toward Allen as she chewed, and Silas felt the coolness slip between them. “Lots of people fail the final,” she said as she used her chopsticks to put a hot pepper on his crumb-strewn plate.

Silas hunched lower in his chair. “Not because of me, they don’t,” he said, but he didn’t know what they could do to make it right, either. He’d already talked to Professor Woo, and there was no extra work, no teaching of classes, nothing.

His head came up as Ethan and Beth stood. “Okay, we’re out of here,” Ethan said, and Beth came around the table to give the women a hug good-bye. “See you guys later.”

But Heidi and Karen had stood as well, making Silas feel as if they were being abandoned. “Us, too,” Karen said. “There’s too many people here. We’re going to another bar where we can sulk in peace. You want to come, Summer? I seriously need to blow off some steam.”

But Summer only settled more firmly against him. “No. Thanks. I’m good here.”

Allen grumbled something unheard, but Silas ignored him, feeling at the same time protective, loving, and depressed. Summer loved him back, and that’s what hurt. This extra semester they now had might seem like a boon, but it would only make the inevitable parting harder. They would graduate. She would move forward in the Opti drafter/anchor program, and he would continue on in academia, developing tools and techniques to keep her safe. From a distance.

No longer hungry, he stuck his chopsticks straight up in a piece of fried onion.

With a final wave, the four left together, probably going somewhere to burn Silas in effigy. Allen was silent, shifting to take advantage of the increased space.

“Are you sure there’s no extra credit we can do?” Allen mused as he pulled the plate of vegetables directly in front of him.

Silas eyed him, then decided Allen could have his dinner if he left his girlfriend alone. “Classes are over,” he said. “It’s done.”

“Not until I say it is,” Allen grumbled, and Silas watched Summer and Allen finish off the plate, vying over the choice bits, their working relationship easy to mistake for attraction. There wasn’t a flicker of jealousy in Silas. He’d figured out long ago that Summer didn’t love Allen. She loved Silas and had chosen to work with Allen because Allen would never risk Silas’s anger by trying to move their working relationship to a new level. She’d been using Allen to keep serious anchors at a distance. But someday she would move on. And Silas had been holding her back.

Silas’s hands clenched. “Summer. I’m sorry.”

Knowing he wasn’t talking about last night, she leaned in to give him a kiss. “I wouldn’t change a thing,” she said, making it worse.

Allen’s expression went sour, fully aware of his part in the trio. “I’m tired of getting shot. How come I’m always the one who gets shot?”

Silas chuckled, his good mood hesitating as a slim, petite woman passed between him and the bar. She was limping, and he stood in a rush, recognizing her voice when she politely refused an unwelcome advance. Summer and Allen stared up at him in surprise. “Excuse me,” he said as he angled his bulk out.

“Who is it?” Summer asked, seeing his gaze on the woman, who was now standing with her back to them as she looked over the music selection at the jukebox.

“I’m not sure,” he hedged, pulse fast as he got free of the table and made his way across the room.

People got out of his way, and he still had no idea what he was going to say when he reached her. In a quandary, he froze. He couldn’t just walk up and say, “Hey, you owe me for screwing up my test grade.”

She stiffened, feeling him behind her. “I’m not a bitch for saying no. I came here to get away from everyone, okay?” she said as she turned. But her peeved expression shifted to one of recognition, and then she flushed the most comely shade of red.

“Hi,” he said flatly.

She recovered fast, running her gaze up and down his more casual clothes once, before leaning in to be heard over the noise. “Thanks for the migraine last night, Dr. Banner.”

His lip twitched at the thinly veiled reference to the Hulk. “It’s Dr. Denier, actually. I have to retake my exam, thanks to you.” The music changed, and his shoulders relaxed as the electronic country shifted to something a little more sophisticated, with brass and complicated rhythm.

“Yeah?” she said tartly. “I spent last night in the dark with a washcloth over my eyes.”

His shoulders regained their belligerent hunch. “There were three drafters on site amplifying it, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll let my best friend die next time.”

Her eyes flicked behind him to the table. He could feel Summer watching, sense Allen’s amusement. “Sorry,” she said, and he could tell she didn’t say it often, but when she did, she meant it. “It wasn’t you who double-drafted anyway. It was her.”

Silas turned at her caustic tone, wincing at Summer’s pointed, inquiring look.

The small woman leaned casually against the jukebox, effectively preventing anyone from changing the music. “But no one gets mad at tall, blond, and beautiful,” she finished dryly.

Silas’s attention came back to her, the way she looked against the jukebox with the light accenting her curves. “And you’re tiny and deadly,” he said. “What’s your beef?”

The woman’s eyes flicked to his, her surprise that he thought her competent obvious. Slowly she pushed herself up. “None of them deserve to pass,” she said frankly. “I heard what happened. No one blocked the 911 calls, and local authority was on the scene in eleven minutes. Everyone was focused on get in, get the tag, get out. Everyone had a cell phone, and no one did a search on who might have a gun, who carried a concealed, how many times the bar had been hit by armed thieves, and the chances they had an SOP for gunplay. No one even bothered to see if the back door was open.”

Silas abruptly lost his need to protest.

“There were six of them there,” the woman said, eyes tracking someone behind him, “and they caused a panic that made local and state news. My God, you got the proctor shot.”

“He’s not a proctor, he’s a prophylactic,” Allen said as he came up to them. “What would you have done?”

“Not what you did,” the woman said, sticking her hand out. “Peri Reed.”

“Allen Swift,” he said, taking it as Summer eased up beside Silas and Silas curved a hand around her waist. “You’re in the freshman class?” he asked quizzically.

“No, incoming senior,” she said brightly, and Silas exhaled, glad she wasn’t looking at him anymore. At his side, Summer gave him an askance look. “I did my military on the East Coast, but I can’t get the upper drafter classes there, so here I am.”

Silas’s brow rose. “I didn’t know Opti did that.”

She leaned back against the jukebox, giving the approaching man a look to turn around and wait to put in his music request. “They don’t, but Opti found me at like ten, so they just let me hang with my retired agent/child psychologist for the drafter studies, and I got the military stuff through the Marines.”

She’d gone through Marine training? Gutsy.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Allen said, making Silas wonder at the light in his eye.

“Ah, this is Summer, my girlfriend,” Silas said, and the two women shook hands, looking so different they complemented each other.

“Peri Reed. Pleasure,” the woman said again, her confidence telling Silas she was used to meeting people with a lot of personal clout and could hold her own.

“I think you met Silas yesterday?” Summer guessed.

“Met? She hit me with a stolen drone and got my exam thrown out,” he said, and Summer grinned.

“Sorry about the migraine last night,” Summer said brightly.

Peri shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. You do what you need to do to save your anchor, the hell with the rest. If nothing else, I’ve got a big list of what not to do next year.”

Allen cleared his throat, clearly not sure if she was being sarcastic or not. Silas was betting she wasn’t.

“And what would you have done?” Allen asked as he took his glasses off and dropped them in his shirt pocket. “There were six agents on site and one goal.”

Peri beamed. “There was one retired agent on site,” she said, and Allen froze when she reached out and tightened his tie. “Watching six students and one lab rat trying to play pin the tail on the box of chocolates.”

Lab rat?

“If it had been me,” Peri said as she dropped back from Allen, his ears now a flustered red, “I would have gone into Professor Milo’s office the night before and replaced the chocolates in the box with fuzzy troll babies.”

Silas chuckled, smile fading when three couples took their table, pushing their used glasses to the front, where a waitress whisked them away.

“Yeah?” Allen said antagonistically as Summer began casting around for another table, but the place was full.

“Yeah.” Peri cocked her head coyly. “It’s a win-win either way. If I got the box on task, I win. If I didn’t get the box on task, it’s still a win because I already have the chocolate.”

It made sense in a warped and twisted way. Just the thing a retired, bored Opti-agent-turned-schoolteacher would find amusing. “And if you got caught in Milo’s office?” he asked.

Peri smiled as she turned to him. “I’d still call that a win. I’d probably be put on suspension, but I’d have the kudos for trying.”

There was that, and Silas’s hand tightened around Summer’s waist.

“I hear you all have to wait six months to retake,” Peri said. “If someone tried that with me, I’d trash the grading computer so everyone had to retake. They won’t make everyone wait to graduate, and if they run them again . . .” Peri smirked, turning to the jukebox to make another selection.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Allen said softly.

Suddenly wary, Silas stopped looking for another table. “What,” he said flatly.

“We could do that!” Allen said with wide-eyed enthusiasm. “We could break into the registrar’s office and wipe out everyone’s grades for the semester.”

Summer began to laugh. “Allen, love. They back those up,” she said, and Silas frowned, wishing Allen would let it go.

“So we put the system in a death spiral instead,” Allen said, waving his arms and inching into Peri’s personal space. “It will have the same effect. If they can’t reboot, they can’t post grades. Silas knows how to do that.”

“And everyone on campus knows it,” Silas said as Peri pushed Allen right back with a stiff finger. Silas hid a smile, enjoying how the woman was reading everyone quickly and correctly. His smile faded. Something had hurt her in the past, something that made her good at assessing people fast. But most drafters were like that.

“Which means nothing if they can’t prove it was you,” Allen persisted. “It will take months to rebuild. Win-win,” he said brightly. “Either we do it and they let us graduate with everyone else due to the general disarray, or we fail and deserve being held back.”

Summer gave Silas a weary look. Silas agreed. Allen’s expression darkened upon seeing it. “What are they going to do?” Allen said. “Kick us out of the program? We’re too valuable.”

Well, Silas was valuable, and Summer, being a drafter, was valuable. Allen . . . not so much, and with that, Silas realized Allen was fighting for something he knew he was at risk of losing. With no drafter invested in him, Allen had to prove himself, or he’d be shoved into the slush pool, where he’d do research and file papers until catching the eye of a high-profile drafter. It was sort of Silas’s fault, not for having screwed up his final, but for using Allen as a buffer so he could maintain a relationship with Summer, a relationship that was destined to fall apart unless he proved he could be an effective anchor.

“We’ll do it,” he said suddenly, and Summer gasped, almost as shocked as Allen.

“Silas, are you kidding?” Summer said, eyes wide.

“Opti rewards bold, decisive behavior,” he said nervously, and Peri’s eyebrows rose in question. “It couldn’t make things worse. And it might be my only chance to prove that I could make a good anchor and get out of the labs,” he finished, hating that his neck had gone red.

Allen went quiet. “Okay,” he said slowly as the music changed again, into something dark and dangerous. “We’ve got two days to figure this out. Peri, you still have that drone you stole?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said, hand raised as she dropped back a step. “Why are you assuming I want to get involved?”

“You mean the one she hit Silas with?” Summer asked. “Silas said it was busted.”

“You owe Silas for getting his exam thrown out,” Allen said, and she shook her head, not buying it. “Then do it because you’re three years behind in impressing the hell out of the instructors, every one of whom are going to see a little rich girl playing spy and put you in the mail room so your mommy doesn’t sue them when you break a nail,” he tried again.

Ooooo, that hurt, Silas thought as she flushed, clearly sensitive about her size, or maybe her background. “It won’t fly,” Peri said.

But that wasn’t a no, and Allen grinned. “I can get it working and off-grid in two hours.”

“Good,” Peri said. “Because when I was in there today registering for classes, I heard they were going to deliver grades over the weekend. We have six hours.”

Tonight? We’ll have to do it tonight? Silas’s pulse raced. It was like making lemonade from a cow patty. But Summer and he would have a chance to prove they could work together, perhaps getting him out of the labs, where he might be able to find something lasting with her. Allen would have the chance to make himself stand out, or at the very least gain some points with a rising, clearly talented drafter. And Peri, well, Allen hadn’t lied about her possibly ending up in a soft, low-profile job.

They were all looking at Silas, committed but waiting for confirmation. Peri had the intel, Allen and Summer the know-how, and he the technology that would make it work.

“Why the hell not?” he said, and Summer smiled at him, kindling a growing feeling of anticipation.

CHAPTER

FOUR

A simmering tension made Silas’s grip on the micro-iron chancy, and he cursed his thick fingers as the delicate tool slipped from the wristband’s circuitry, threatening Summer’s pale skin. Summer had such slim hands. The thought that he might hurt her made him nervous.

“Relax.” Summer leaned into him, calming him with her touch. “You’ve got this.”

But it was her skin he might tear if he angled the tool too tight. Worried, he bent over the wristband again. The oily scent of the smut Summer had traced around his eyes earlier seemed to get into them, and he blinked fast.

Across the small on-campus apartment’s living room, Allen and Peri were working out the details of using her phone to drive the reappropriated drone. Using his phone and the drone as a booster, they could link the computer in the registrar’s office to the one in Silas’s lab without using the monitored fiber-optic lines. With it, they’d have the distance to remain blameless, if not anonymous.

The rest of their tools—lock picks, camera spray, smartphone-to-glass technology adapter, and DNA-destroying wipes—were assembled on the coffee table beside them. They were waiting for him, and Silas tried to concentrate as Peri looked over his and Summer’s apartment, the smart woman learning more about him than he was comfortable with.

Anyone could tell he and Summer had been together a long time. The two-room flat was a pleasant mix of him and her, no clashing of styles but a comfortable, easy “us.” That Summer might someday put things in boxes and leave to work with someone other than him was terrifying. Who did the complete set of Lord of the Rings DVDs belong to? Who would keep the glasses, each chip having a story to tell? The towels on the rack she had insisted were too expensive? Who retained the picture of them at the amusement park, and who would have an empty spot on their coffee table?

He squinted at the unexpected anxiety, exhaling when Summer shifted the light. This has to work, he thought as he tried the new angle Summer had suggested. I can’t lose her because I’m too good at my job.

The sliding sound of Peri putting the picture of them in the bumper cars back on the coffee table seemed to rake across his soul. Her expression was as tight as his, as if she were seeing something from her past in their happy faces. “My dorm has a three a.m. curfew,” she said, giving the picture a last nudge to put it precisely where it had been. “If I’m not back by then, it will raise a flag.”

Summer shifted on the seat beside him, uneasy. “Just go,” she said, and Silas’s grip on her wrist tightened at the heartache in her eyes, the clear blue of them lost behind the ring of black camouflage. “I’ll stay here. Keep your back door open.”

Allen looked up from his phone, using it like a mirror to apply the same facial recognition deterrent around his eyes. “You think three of us can do this?” he asked, handing the smut stick to Peri, who capped it off and dropped it into her waist pack.

“We won’t have to,” Silas said, fighting the tension. “I just need . . . there.” He slumped as he finally got the circuit cleared and was able to pull the chipped bracelet from Summer’s arm. “You’re good,” he said as he put it next to the speaker where Allen’s wristband lay. The faint thump of the electronic dance music would give the impression of a pulse, and the work light hanging over it would keep it at body temperature. It was their window of opportunity and their alibi all at once.

“I’m not a dog to be chipped.” Allen stood, shrugging into his black jacket and checking the ties on his boots. “Thanks, Silas.”

“No problem.” Silas stood as well, but his relief was short-lived. He turned to find his satchel, but was distracted by his tablet chiming that the data had finished compiling. As much as he wanted to see it, that could wait, and he bumped into Summer as she handed his satchel to him; he wasn’t expecting her to be that close. Her smile was a sad hint, and his arms went around her in a quick, fervent hug. “This will be quick like bunnies,” he predicted, but it felt like a wish, a hope.

“I know,” she whispered, but even if they did this right, there were no guarantees.

He held Summer’s coat for her, and as Allen and Peri waited impatiently by the door with the stolen drone, he gave one last look at the space that he and Summer had made. His eyes rose to his friends, all of them looking like exotic ancient warriors, with the battle paint around their eyes and across their cheekbones.

“Let’s go,” he said, and one by one they filed out before him. Silas shut the door behind him and set the biometrics lock. It felt more final than it should.

From there, it was a quick jog across the night-darkened campus to the registrar’s office. The noise of partying students was obvious, and they skirted a drunken crowd at the fountain, slowing to a halt in the quiet of the deserted office building. It was designated low-security, but there’d be someone on site, and Silas held his breath as Allen hugged the building and gave the door camera a spritz of camera fog. Nodding, he stepped back, and Summer typed in the students’ access code. The light over the door made her into an angel.

“This is the coolest thing,” Allen said as he rubbed the excess camera fog from his fingers. “How come we don’t have this?”

“It’s still in development,” Silas said, not surprised Allen had never seen it. The science geeks were still tweaking it, but Silas thought it was perfect as it was, evaporating in thirty seconds and designed to block detail without attracting the attention of whoever was watching the monitors.

“Drone is up,” Peri said, the faint glow of her phone lighting her face as she stood outside the camera’s range with her back to the building. “And . . . we’ve got connection. No reason to think it won’t hold once we’re inside.”

Frowning, Summer again typed the access code. From the reader, a dismal beep sounded. “Uh, guys?”

Allen slumped. “Great,” he said, looking behind him. “This is going to look fabulous on my résumé. We can’t even get in. You think there’s an open window or something?”

Peri looked up from landing the drone on the roof, her angular face going into shadow when the phone went dormant. Leaning forward, she peered at the code. “It’s the right code. I used the same one this morning. I bet they have an after-hours approval.”

Sure enough, the intercom on the door crackled. “Yes? Who is it?”

As one, they all dropped back out of the camera’s range. It was a night guard. Brow furrowed, Allen hit the RESPOND button, scraping his finger across the mic to simulate a bad connection.

“Hang on. I’ll be right up. Intercom is fuzzy,” a masculine voice said, then nothing.

Peri’s eyes went to Summer. “Someone is going to have to distract him.”

“I’ll do it,” Summer said immediately.

Starting, Silas pulled Summer deeper into the shadows. “No. You have no reason to be here. Peri was here this morning and can pretend to be looking for her phone. Peri can do it.”

“Me?” Peri’s lips parted in surprise. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m not a tall, sexy bombshell.”

Silas took the phone out of Peri’s hand and handed it to Summer. “No, you are petite, dark, and sexy as all hell. Don’t sell yourself short. Summer can work the drone.”

No one said anything, and he realized Summer and Allen were staring at him. “What?” he said, feeling his neck warm. “You don’t think she’s sexy enough to distract a night guard?”

“Well, yeah,” Allen said. “We’re just surprised you noticed.”

Flustered, Silas took Summer’s phone and gave it to Peri. “Tell him you forgot your phone this afternoon,” he said, using the DNA wipes to get the smut from her face. Her features were tiny, her small nose turned up at the end, and her dark lashes long and heavy. Nothing like Summer’s strong cheekbones and wispy lashes. “Jam the door when he opens it if nothing else. If he lets you in, I’ll text you when we’ve finished, and we’ll wait for you outside. Go. You’ve got this, and we’ve got you.”

Peri hesitated, and a tingle spread from Silas’s fingers through his entire body. He could see the moment she decided to trust him, and it was thrilling all by itself—that trust given not freely, but fully. “I can’t believe this,” she said. “You can work the drone?”

“Yes, we’re good.”

The lights flicked on within the long corridor inside. It was the guard, and everyone but Peri scattered, Allen to one side, Silas and Summer to the other. The excitement of the improv shivered through Silas. It would work. They had all understudied someone else’s part, and there was nothing to stumble over. The only thing he didn’t like was that the guard would remember Peri. If his phone didn’t reach the drone and piggyback the connection, they’d have to use the ground lines, which would lead any investigation here to Peri looking for her phone at midnight.

The rattle of the door sent a shock through him, and he froze, crouched awkwardly and feeling as big and obvious as a bus.

“Hi, can I help you?” the guard said as the open door buzzed a soft warning, and Silas relaxed. The man’s voice was heavy with interest. Peri had this, with sparkles and silver stars.

“I am so sorry,” she said with an apologetic lilt Silas never would’ve guessed she could manage. “I left my phone in the waiting room this afternoon. It was so weird. No one was calling me. I thought maybe I could just get it and no one would know how stupid I was. Has anyone turned it in?”

“No.” The door squeaked as he pushed it open even more, the alarm still buzzing. “You want to take a look?”

“Oh, thank you,” Peri gushed. “You are a lifesaver.”

Silas peeked around the building’s trash can, his smile widening as he saw the tall man completely taken by Peri as she touched his arm. “Kind of late to be making a call, isn’t it?” he said.

“I just transferred in. My boyfriend is on the West Coast and I told him I’d call around nine. It’s about nine there, isn’t it?”

The door shut, the alarm cutting off. Silas edged forward, watching as they turned a corner at the end of the corridor and were gone.

Summer came even with Silas, a wiry grin on her face as she brought up the drone app on Peri’s phone. “She’s really good for someone who thinks she’s a two on charisma. I just hope I’m a ten on tech.”

“It’s pretty standard,” Silas said, impressed as well, and becoming more so when he saw the lock pick Peri had jammed at the sensor pad, preventing the heavy door from locking even as the alarm circuit was closed.

Allen took a last look back toward the faint music drifting across campus, then followed them inside. “I’m guessing we have three minutes?”

Lip between her teeth as she studied the unfamiliar phone, Summer said, “She’s as cute as a bug and smart as a snake. We’ve got ten, easy.”

As Allen ran vanguard, Silas took her elbow, guiding her down the hall as she walked and worked the drone, watching the connection rise and fall as they moved. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No,” she said, and Silas gave her a sideways hug, the urge to hold and never let go heavy in him.

Tall and lanky, Allen stretched to spray another camera into a blurry, temporary mess. “Guys?” he said, exasperated at the cuddling, and Silas let his arms slip from Summer.

Thirty seconds and three cameras later, they were at the manager’s office. Silas’s brow furrowed at the locked door pad, and then he relaxed. It was last year’s technology. Easy.

“Summer?” he asked as he popped the panel, and she glanced at Peri’s phone.

“Drone is good. We have a solid connection.”

Excitement made his fingers tingle. “Then let’s do this,” he said, and the door lock clicked to green.

Allen pushed the door open, hesitating briefly before vanishing inside. Silas followed, nose wrinkling at the strong perfume scent that hazed the small room. Two monitors alternated between four cameras, showing a break room, reception desk, waiting room, and the dark receiving bay. A cold, oily cup of coffee sat amid strewn papers and files on the desk in front of the screens, and an indulgent desk chair with a large butt print sat before it. One of the monitors had gone steady on a single image, a red light on the screen indicating movement. It was Peri and the night guard, and he smiled as they began checking under the chairs in the waiting room for her “missing” phone, Peri’s faint voice coming through the speaker.

The lock on the door might have been last year’s, but the computer system was not, and Allen made a happy sound as he sat before the state-of-the-art glass technology monitor, thin fingers moving fast as he bypassed level after level of security to get into the background. “Nice chair,” he complained, the broken caster rattling as he scooted it forward.

Summer leaned over Allen, watching. “Can you route it so it looks as if the attack came from Milo’s office?”

Allen smiled up at her, flushing when Silas cleared his throat. “Ah, too obvious,” he said as Summer grinned at Silas and backed up. “They’d know that was contrived and look for the trace back to here. I’m going to route us through the lunchroom.”

“Lunchroom?” Silas asked, head down as he dug through his belt pack for the smartphone–glass tech adapter. His phone was in the way, and he set it aside, finally finding the small clear wafer of glass.

“Everything feeds into the lunchroom,” Allen said, and Summer plucked the glass pad from Silas’s hand and cheerfully began hooking it up herself. It was obvious Allen and Summer were an effective team, working seamlessly and without getting in each other’s way, but if this was a success, it would be him beside her next year, and he pushed his anticipation down.

Summer touched Allen’s shoulder to tell him she was done, then dropped back to check on the drone, fingers hesitating only briefly at the unfamiliar system. “We’ve got a great connection. How’s Peri doing?”

Silas’s attention rose to the monitor. Peri’s butt was in the air as she checked under all the waiting room chairs. The night guard was helping, but it was obvious he was more interested in Peri than in her phone. “Okay, I guess,” he said, and Summer chuckled.

“Got it,” Allen said with a decisive smack of a key. “Time for your upgrade, baby,” he added as he stood to move out of Silas’s way. “Silas, she’s all yours.”

Silas spun the chair to himself, holding his breath when the scent of perfume puffed out and around him when he sat. Regardless of what Summer thought, Peri was running out of places to look. His fingers fluid and fast, he accessed the computer’s security level. If he couldn’t upgrade it, the mainframe wouldn’t recognize the terminal’s priority and his nifty “death spiral” program wouldn’t be allowed to upload.

“Phone,” he said distantly, hand going to his belt pack.

But Summer was there, her lips beside his ear. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to him as she bit gently down on his earlobe.

Sensation raced to his groin, and he stifled a shiver. “Please tell me that’s not standard anchor/drafter protocol,” he said as he set his phone on the nearby pad and it lit up in connection.

Her wicked smile was inches away, her lips so close. “Depends upon the anchor,” she said, her eyes flicking to the monitor as it connected to his office computer and the entire system before him doubled its capabilities.

They were in.

“We’re set,” he said casually, and Allen made a muffled exclamation. “Last chance to change our minds.”

“Sweet. Do it,” Allen said, hunched over the desk in excitement.

Silas looked at Summer, loving the way she looked beside him, face flushed and eyes alight. Their eyes met, and she nodded.

On the monitor, Peri stood before the waiting room vending machine, her hands on her hips as she posed coyly, her distress real enough for Silas. “Maybe someone kicked it under the machine,” she said, annoyance in her voice. “Could you look? The dust is bad for my asthma.”

His phone was still on the glass plate, and, leaning, he left-swiped through the open apps, hitting the one that gave him access to the simple but deadly program that he’d played with during his freshman year. His pulse raced as he brought it front and center.

Summer’s slim hand stopped his, and she was the one who hit the confirmation key. He looked up at her, seeing the faint tremble in her lips, the need in her for this to work, the possibilities that would open for both of them if it did. This was what he wanted to do. She was who he wanted to do it with. He wasn’t too big to be an effective agent.

It took an unreal two seconds for the program to register, two seconds for all his doubts and shortcomings to rise to the surface. And then the monitor chimed, wanting confirmation.

“Yes means yes,” Allen said, and Summer tapped it again.

There was a responding glow from the phone, and the computer flashed an error message. One by one, the running programs began to shut down.

“Sweet!” Allen exclaimed softly, straightening to his full height. “Let’s get out of here.”

But Summer didn’t move, and Silas stood, meticulously unhooking the glass pad and wiping the area down. “Have you texted Peri?” he asked, seeing Peri still with the guard.

Summer glanced at the phone in her hand. “Just now.” The phone went dark. “Drone has been sent into the drink.”

“Guys?” Allen prompted, and Silas watched Peri “find” her phone, jumping up and down and giving the guard a hug, making him flush and stammer. “Before the sun goes nova, maybe?”

But Summer didn’t move. “I can’t wait until tomorrow to see if this worked,” she said, voice strained. “I have to know now.”

Allen’s urgent ushering motions stopped. “But these things take forever to reboot,” he complained as the monitor went dark. Immediately it lit up and started to come alive.

Please work, Silas thought, anxious as he continued to stuff things in his belt pack with no regard to organization.

“It will work,” Allen said, fidgeting. “It’s Silas’s program. They never fail. Let’s go!”

But Summer remained before the glowing screen, breathless as the systems came up and alive. He had just trashed the academy’s grading computer. Silas felt good, and bad . . . and he was glad that Summer was with him.

Please . . . he thought as the system came alive. And then a message box flashed up.

ERROR. REBOOT.

“It’s good. Can we go now?” Allen demanded.

Summer exhaled, the soft sound going to Silas’s core and igniting him. One by one, the programs began to shut down again. It had worked.

“Let’s go.” Summer breezed out to the hall, almost jogging. Jerking into motion, Silas followed, leaving Allen to finish swabbing the door free of their prints. His feet hardly seemed to touch the floor, and he moved without effort. It wasn’t the high of a successful task, it was the chance they might be able to make this work, to be together as they wanted. He wanted this, she wanted this. It was right. It was perfect.

Thank God Peri had a reason for being here yesterday, or this wouldn’t have gotten past the front door, he thought, then, Thank God she had hit me with the drone.

They slipped out the way they’d come in, spurred on by Peri’s cheerful chatter just a hallway away. Together they spilled into the night, Summer and Silas hustling into the dark as Allen wiped down the door and intercom. He slipped out of sight just as Peri and the night guard turned the corner into the hallway.

Silas held his breath as Peri’s voice became louder. Summer’s warmth was beside him, her excitement adding to his. Whatever happened now, it had been worth it.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” Allen whispered as he settled nearby, making Silas feel like a hulking giant.

“It’s good to be bad,” Summer said, her teeth catching the light as she smiled, and Silas nodded, his arm slipping around her, pulling her closer.

They froze as the door buzzed and then opened. “Thank you so much,” Peri was gushing, the overhead light illuminating her. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.”

“I’m glad it was still there.” The night guard hung halfway through the open door. “Have a good night, and good luck with your studies.”

“Thanks!” she said expansively. “Bye!”

She turned away, her face losing its light cast as the shadows took her, a dangerous glint blossoming in its place. Silas’s own expression went still as he recognized the depth of her determination, her focus. There was no play in her, no farce, not like there had been in Allen and Summer. Seeing her pacing away from the locked door, Silas realized she would have knocked that man cold if she had needed to, fought him, maybe even shot him with his own weapon to protect them. But she hadn’t. She was good enough not to need to.

And she trusted us to do the same, he realized, not knowing if that had been the smart thing to do. Peri was far more invested in this than Allen ever was about anything.

Uneasy, Silas made a soft noise as she passed them, and she flicked her fingers, acknowledging him even as she continued on as if oblivious.

“Let’s go.” Allen touched his arm, and they backed up before turning and walking away.

Oblivious to the strength of Peri’s commitment, Allen almost danced across the dark campus. “That was so sweet!” he exclaimed, hardly above a whisper. “Damn, I love my life.”

Laughing, Summer pointed out Peri, and they angled toward her.

“You did it, yes?” Peri asked as they closed the gap and halted under a lone streetlight.

Summer nodded, looking beautiful as the two women exchanged phones. “I sent the drone into the ocean, and trashed the controlling app already.”

“Thanks.” Peri checked her messages, head jerking up when Silas grabbed Summer, spinning her around in a shrieking circle and pulling her into him as they came to a happy halt. She was soft against him, and laughing, and, not letting go, Silas took a wipe from his pocket and cleaned the black smut from Summer’s face. A new closeness made his motions more tender, loving, as he traced her lines, and, sensing it, she smiled at him, the happiness and relief in her warming him.

Unable to resist, he pulled her closer and gave her a kiss, his passion kindling deeper as she responded as if they were alone, pressing into him with a fervent tension. He would never let her go.

But she reluctantly pulled back a little, remaining in his arms even as she used the same wipe to take the smut from his face in turn. “I hope this works,” she said, eyes flicking behind him to where Allen stood, quiet as he cleaned the incriminating black lines from himself.

“It has to,” Silas said, letting Summer go as he realized Peri was carefully not watching them as well. “No one has ever done it before. That has to count for something.”

“So who wants to go for a beer?” Allen said, the glow from his phone lighting his face as he checked the time. “We’ve got almost an hour before last call.”

As if nothing bad could ever happen, they turned to cross campus, arm in arm and laughing like the drunken students scattered about. “ ‘This is bad for my asthma’?” Silas said, poking fun at Peri, and the woman flushed, her embarrassment overshadowed by the obvious pleasure of having found her place among new friends.

But her reply never came, and her expression fell.

Allen halted, swearing, and Silas and Summer scuffed to a halt, following their companions’ attention across campus to the upperclassman apartments.

There were cars parked askew in the lot before the building’s main door, and people were standing in the glow of headlamps.

CHAPTER

FIVE

Silas’s thick hands clenched as he stood in the small kitchen, refusing to sit in the living room like a chastised little boy. Summer called it a fanny-bumper kitchen, and he took up the space nearly in its entirety, hunched and angry as the accusations mounted and the night went from bad to worse.

The small apartment had hosted larger parties, but the venom pouring from Professor Milo combined with Professor Woo’s frustration made it claustrophobic. Peri’s advocate, an old man in his seventies named Dr. Cavana, had been a silent, closed pillar standing behind the small woman, but the deference the other two were showing him was enough to give Silas pause.

The wrinkle-lined man had arrived earlier that evening, called in by the two professors to discuss Peri’s probable involvement in the previous day’s drone incident. Failing to find her, he and Professor Milo had tracked her down to the empty apartment and the thwarted, chipped wristbands. Milo’s anger over the wristbands was nothing compared to the outpouring when the tech call came in about the mainframe’s failure. That had been about twenty minutes ago.

Silas’s eyes went to the ceiling vent when the air conditioner clicked on. Mood bad, he reached out and turned it off so he could see Professor Milo sweat in the coat and tie he’d put on for the dignitary. A lump showed on his right arm where he’d been bandaged, and Silas didn’t feel any remorse at all that he had it in a sling.

Coming into the small kitchen, Summer swayed around him in a familiar dance, eyebrows high as she flicked the air conditioner back on again.

Silas ignored the heated argument between the two retired Opti agents, bending close over Summer to breathe in the scent of her hair. It still held the hint of that hideous perfume from the manager’s office. “You always were the smarter of us,” he said as she poured coffee into two mugs. His eyes flicked to the silent, tall man behind Peri, wondering why the mismatched mugs bothered him. They never had before.

Summer’s hands were steady as she extended the full mugs to him and nodded toward Allen and Peri. Exhaling heavily, he took them, shoulders back in unrepentance as he passed within feet of Professor Milo. Why do you hate me so much, old man?

Peri beamed up at him, sitting in Summer’s reading chair with her arms draped across it as if nothing were wrong. “Thanks, Silas,” she said as she reached for the offered coffee. But he couldn’t help but notice she set it aside untasted.

“Allen?” he prompted, and Allen looked up from where he sat perched at the front of the couch, his elbows on his knees as his fate was decided.

“No, thanks. I want to sleep tonight,” he muttered, and Silas kept the mug, retreating to stand before the tiny fireplace where he could see everyone. In the kitchen, Summer made a second pot of coffee, desperately trying to do something normal.

That they had removed Allen’s and Summer’s chipped bracelets wasn’t a direct link to the malfunctioning mainframe, but that didn’t seem to matter to Professor Milo.

“You will be expelled for this, Dr. Denier,” Professor Milo said, face red. “Removed from the program entirely.”

Fat chance, Silas thought as Professor Woo drew himself up in anger. “You can’t do that, Milo,” he said, and Milo looked the smaller man up and down in threat.

“No? See if I don’t.”

Head craned, Professor Woo pushed into Milo’s space, almost shoving the taller man onto the couch. “I have listened to you rant for twenty minutes now. Get off my student’s back. It’s a year-end prank. Let it go at that.”

“Prank!” Milo became choleric. “They destroyed an entire semester’s grades.”

“Prove it,” Allen muttered, and behind Peri, Dr. Cavana chuckled, hiding it with a cough.

Professor Woo backed up, his expression grim. “I checked into it while you were on your tirade. It doesn’t need rebuilding. The system is in a reboot spiral. Whoever did it can undo it. Your reactions are not based on the current situation but on your bruised pride, and I won’t let you kick Denier out of the program because he’s smarter than you and you can’t handle it.”

Speechless, Professor Milo stared at the slight man, his face flushed as his darting gaze read amusement all around. His eyes fastened on Silas, and the hatred poured from him.

Thanks. That helps a lot, Professor Woo.

Dr. Cavana bent at the waist, his lips near Peri’s ear as he touched her shoulder and said, “Doesn’t take you long, does it.”

Leaning to the side, she beamed up at him. “I was trying to make friends.”

Sighing, he straightened, hand still atop her shoulder. “Maybe I should transfer out here,” he said, and Peri’s expression froze as his fingers gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Or do you think you can keep from antagonizing the apple cart from here on out.”

Silas’s eyebrows rose. Two sentences. That’s all the punishment she had needed. Peri, while clearly not about to subscribe to a halo, would be more careful in her independence, if only to make sure she maintained it. It was a warning well heard.

“Are we being questioned?” Silas suddenly asked. “Is this a formal hearing? If not, I’d like you all to leave.”

“Silas,” Summer quietly protested, but he was well within his rights, and they all knew it.

Dr. Cavana cleared his throat to speak, but Professor Milo nervously blurted, “I see no reason to take this outside academia. Silas will be removed from the program—”

“On what grounds?” Allen protested, jaw clenching when Milo turned his anger to him. “You can’t prove we had anything to do with anything.”

“Tampering with and removing an underclassman’s security bracelet. Interfering with six students’ finals. Give me time,” Milo said forcefully. “I’ll come up with more. You and Summer will remain on probation and will be required to repeat the entire semester, since we seem to be unable to access your grades. And as for Reed?”

Peri looked up from under her bangs, placidly waiting.

“There is no way I will approve accelerating her studies,” Professor Milo said, missing the danger as he was focused on Peri and not Dr. Cavana behind her. “She can start with the freshmen like every other incoming student.”

Peri looked up and behind her at Dr. Cavana with an easy expectance. Silas could almost see her silent communication: I’ll behave if you get me out of this.

“That is not what is going to happen,” Dr. Cavana said calmly. “I warned you not to underestimate her, and you housed her with beginners and maybes,” he said, his tone edging into disgust. “She found the excellence among your ranks and took them somewhere new, as I trained her. If you force her to stay with the freshmen, you will have four years of this, not one.” Lips in a wry smile, he turned to Professor Woo. “You’re right. I’m beginning to see where the issues are stemming from.”

“How dare you,” Milo said, and Silas stiffened at the rising tension.

“How dare I?” Dr. Cavana thundered, and Silas jumped, startled at the depth of the old man’s voice. “How dare you! Setting your students against each other for chocolates and calling it a final exam. Did you even see what happened, Milo, when a true threat rose? I saw the record. They became one unit. They protected! They minimized! They succeeded in the spirit of the goal. I see excellence where you see deficiency. You are hung up on checked boxes and to-do lists of protocol and method when you should be fostering the ability to improvise. Perhaps you need to take a sabbatical.”

For three long seconds, Professor Milo gaped at him, hands shaking. Then he turned to Silas, face grim with promise. “No one is too valuable to be sacrificed, Silas. I might not be able to kick you out, but I can cut off your funding. You will never have the chance to prove your insane theories and will forever be chained to my lab bench.”

He turned to go, and Silas forced his hands to unclench. “Professor Milo?”

“What?” The angry man spun, and Silas clasped his hands behind his back.

“It’s Dr. Denier, if you don’t mind.”

Professor Milo left, slamming the door behind him, awkward with his arm in a sling.

Summer slumped against the kitchen counter, arms over her chest as she stared at the ceiling.

Dr. Cavana gave Peri a pat on the shoulder. “I like your new friends,” he said as he ambled to the door. “Try not to get them expelled.”

Silas watched him adjust his tie, his free hand surreptitiously touching his side as if checking for a sidearm. Old habits die hard, he thought. Cavana had probably been active in the eighties, and he resolved to look him up. Cold War agents were a unique, dying breed. But the old man hesitated at the threshold, his gaze lingering on the defunct wristbands sitting on the kitchen counter like guilt itself. “Which one of you figured out how to circumvent the bio-based tamper fence?” he asked, and Silas cleared his throat, liking the old man.

An eyebrow rose. Grunting his approval, he bowed his head over his cell phone as he went into the hall. Silas looked closer. A glass phone? Since when did those exist?

Allen jostled Peri with his elbow. “Where did he get a glass phone?”

Peri snorted, clearly not impressed. “Pretty, huh? It doesn’t work for crap,” she said.

“Woo, can you give me a ride back to my hotel?” Dr. Cavana asked from the hallway, leaving the door open and clearly expecting the man to follow.

Professor Woo started, eyes wide as the remainder of his night was rearranged for him. “Yes, sir. May I have a moment?”

Oh, really . . . Silas thought as Peri caught his eye and smugly shrugged. Perhaps their new friend had more clout than they realized.

“Take your time!” Cavana called, his voice becoming fainter, but Woo grimaced, his pace fast as he crossed the room to slide the defunct cuffs from the counter into his hands.

“ ‘Take your time,’ ” Professor Woo muttered. “Last time I checked, that meant, Hustle your ass.” Hand on Silas’s back, he drew him to the door. “You do know he invented the technology behind these, right?” he asked as he jiggled the cuffs and dropped them in a pocket.

Silas shook his head, Dr. Cavana’s last look at him taking on new meaning. But Professor Woo had drawn him into the building’s empty hallway, his expression holding a surprising, shared pain. “Silas, I have an idea of what you’re feeling,” he said as he turned him away from Peri and Allen. “That you think your size and your skills in the labs are dictating the limits of your life, but they aren’t.”

“I fail to understand how they are not, Professor,” Silas said. “How can you possibly know what I’m feeling?”

“You don’t see it.” He shifted his coat aside as he put his hands on his hips. “That’s nice. Gives me hope. Silas, I went active during the Cold War.”

Silas gave him a questioning look. “And?” he prompted, still not getting it.

“An Asian?” Professor Woo said, eyebrows high. “During the Cold War? I never got a single task. Fully trained, then shelved into academia. Too valuable, they said, but I knew it was because of what I looked like. It was hard, Silas. I hated it, but it was the closest I could get to what I was meant for, so I stayed, helpless to change anything. Or so I thought.”

Silas let his shoulders slump. There was no silver lining.

“I know how it feels to want something and be denied simply because of how you look,” Woo said. “But you will make a difference. Trust me. Something good will come of it.”

“What good came of you being stuck in a dead-end job for forty years?” Silas said bitterly, not expecting an answer. But a wicked smile curved on Professor Woo’s thin lips.

“Milo has seniority on paper, but as you say, I’ve been here forty years. I run the place through favors owed and ground-floor knowledge.” Woo glanced past Silas into the apartment, to where Allen and Peri commiserated glumly. “I know every single agent Opti has, their weaknesses and strengths. Their needs. You think Milo has any real pull inside these walls? No.” Professor Woo’s eyes came back to Silas. “Which is very good for you, yes?”

Head down, Silas was silent. It wasn’t what he wanted.

Slowly Professor Woo’s smile faded. “Don’t worry about Professor Milo,” he said. “He can’t remove you from the program. We’ll talk about this Monday, okay? Oh, and, ah, no one leaves the campus.”

Silas nodded, but it was only to get the man to leave. Maybe Professor Milo couldn’t remove him from the program, but he could cut off his funding. And whereas Silas wouldn’t be chained to the professor’s lab bench, if he couldn’t prove his theory, he wouldn’t have the letters behind his name to rise much further than he was.

Professor Woo shifted his weight, clearly anxious to rejoin Dr. Cavana. “You can take the system out of the spiral, right?” he asked.

To say yes would be an admission of guilt, but the school would find something to link them to the act, even if it had to be invented. “Takes two minutes,” Silas said.

“Good.” Professor Woo touched his arm in parting. “You’re the best Opti has. Quit screwing around.” Saying nothing more, he turned and left, his pace fast with deference.

His steps slow as he thought, Silas went back into his apartment and shut the door. Thank God the semester was over and he wouldn’t have to deal with the gossip. At least not until everyone came back.

Allen exhaled loudly as the whine of Woo’s electric car rose high and irritating. “We’re going to be legends.”

Peri snickered, rolling her eyes.

“Excuse me,” Summer said, voice quavering as she quickly paced to the bedroom. The door shut hard and Silas slumped.

He wasn’t going to let this go. If he had to fight for what he wanted, he would.

CHAPTER

SIX

The sensation that something was wrong seeped through the disjointed cracks of Silas’s dream, fragmenting his slumber until it broke away and left his mind bare to the world again. Between one breath and the next, he woke, fully aware as he stared at the ceiling of the darkened room.

He turned to the faint ribbon of light coming in from under the door. Summer’s side of the bed was empty, but a faint click of keys muffled his worry. She was in the living room working on something, as was her wont when she couldn’t sleep.

Sighing, he swung his feet to the floor, reaching for his phone to see what time it was.

“Three forty-five?” he whispered, knowing she probably hadn’t slept at all.

Fatigue weighed him down as he rubbed his hand over his bristles and collected himself. Summer had been closed off and silent after Allen and Peri had left, depressed but not resigned. He loved her resilience and refusal to give up. Standing, he looked at her empty side of the bed, vowing that wouldn’t become permanent. They complemented each other too well. Tonight had proved it. Together, he and Summer could do more than he could ever do alone. It was more than her needs being a muse to his jumps of thought. She excelled where he faltered, and he excelled . . . well . . . Summer was good at everything Opti prized in their agents.

Maybe that was the problem, he thought as he scuffed his way to the living room.

Summer looked up as the door opened, her short hair catching the glow of her laptop in the otherwise darkened room. No, it was his tablet.

“What are you doing up?” he said, voice rough from sleep, and she smiled, eyes bright with possibilities.

“I think I have it,” she said, and he sat down beside her on the couch, liking how his weight slid her into him.

But she shifted back, the excitement of discovery in her. “I’ve been looking at the data you got from the double-draft,” she said, and he squinted down, blinking through the glare. “Everything indicates that you’re right, that we’re not going back in time, but sideways, creating a temporary secondary existence for those within our reach, sort of like a closed oxbow of time.”

“Yeah?” He was too tired to think, and he reached for the tablet. Summer wouldn’t let go, and they slid together so they could both hold it. The thin fabric of her nightgown was almost not there, and he forced his attention back. “I could use some good news,” he added, but data supporting his theory was only half the battle. He had to prove it.

“Look here,” she said, slim finger pointing at the three-dimensional graph on the screen. “The gravity sink parallels an individual drafter’s physical reach, and the Doppler shift is a direct correlation with the span of time we impact. You couldn’t see it until there was a double-draft. There wouldn’t be a gravity sink that large unless we were going sideways, creating a new reality that we drag back with us using the Doppler shift resonance echoes as a guide. And if you are moving sideways, not back, then you can do a long draft and change something beyond a drafter’s natural reach. Time is an artifact of distance moved, not the other way around. This proves it, Silas. You did it!”

Summer was hugging him, and he blinked fast, pulse quickening as he lurched to keep his tablet from hitting the floor when she let go of it.

“This changes everything,” she said, positively glowing. “You’ll have all the clout you need to do whatever you want. Professor Milo can eat your silicon dust,” she said. “Silas,” she exclaimed, giving him a shake. “Say something!”

A slow smile spread across his face, and he stared at the data, torn between studying it and holding her. “We only have this one data pool,” he said. “I’ll need more to prove it. Years,” he said, his excitement faltering at the idea of fighting Professor Milo for every scrap of computer time, the agony the drafters and anchors would have to endure to even gather the data. Years in which Summer would drift farther from him as she began her work as a drafter. “I can’t say a long draft is possible with just one twenty-second double-draft. I need more data.”

Her lips pressed together, a vivid red against her cheeks, which were pale from lack of sleep. “Data? You don’t need data. I’ll prove it right now.”

“Summer!” he exclaimed as he set the tablet aside, shifting sideways to take her hands. “Knowing I’m right doesn’t equal safe or even possible. You might have to hold uncountable timelines until I can defragment them. The human mind is not a circuit.”

“The human mind is the most flexible system ever created,” she said, flushed. “Isn’t that what you tell your students? Are you saying you don’t believe it?”

“Well, no . . .”

“Your theory is sound,” she said as she pulled away, her excitement undimmed but tarnished by his disbelief. “I’m not going to wait,” she said, cutting off his next protest. “I’m not going to wait until time and a partner assignment decide who I will love. Not if I can go back and maybe shift something. Make it better.”

“Make it better?” he whispered, not believing his levelheaded, careful Summer was threatening to jump into the unknown, risk everything for . . . for them. “No.” Turning to face her even more, he took her shoulders, feeling her defiance. “There’s too much we don’t know.”

“Then I’ll find out,” she said, and he gasped as vertigo swamped him. Sparkles so blue they glowed black rose like fireflies, blocking his vision. His grip on Summer became numb, indistinct. He scrambled for her, searching for her mind as she threw them both back far beyond her normal reach, the gravity sink of the double-draft pulling her. And she drafted.

Silas spasmed as hot lances pierced his skull. He fastened on the thump of music, knowing immediately where they were. The dance club. It was the night they failed their test. She won’t survive, he thought, ignoring Professor Milo’s demand as he bolted out of the back room.

He slid to a halt just past the door as his mind struggled to comprehend. Behind him the security room was stable—no choices to be made there—but before him . . . the bar was red-tinted shadows of alternate times. It was as if translucent pages fluttered before his vision, and he tried to comprehend, nothing real but Summer standing upon the dance floor.

The pain of the universe being born shook him as she rifled through choices as if she were looking for a favorite recipe. She was the only thing clear as red-smeared shadows played out alternate timelines around her.

With an angry, Doppler-tainted shout, the bouncer grew distinct as possibilities circled and steadied around the angry man. She’s trying to keep Professor Milo from getting shot, he thought as Summer focused on him. The pain was less as choices were cast aside, and feeling it, she smiled. Tiny shifts of probability haloed her in silver, and the knowledge that their love would survive made her achingly beautiful.

“Excuse me,” Silas said as he tapped the bouncer on the shoulder. The man spun, and the red blur that was Allen became solid and real. Less pain, more reality. Silas jerked the rifle from the bouncer’s hand, and the drafter/anchor teams wavered into existence out of the red smear of possibilities. “Hold this,” Silas said, throwing the rifle to Professor Milo, who had emerged from the back room. If he had the rifle, he couldn’t be shot by it.

“Take us home, Summer,” he said, and she nodded, love in her eyes. It was done, and there was no pain, just a euphoric rising of success.

For an instant, the universe seemed to pause, assessing what Summer had done. And then . . . quietly, and quite decisively, the universe balanced its books.

Silas gasped as time slid sideways through a billion ticks of electrons in the space of one. His head thundered and he hit the floor, his hands clenching the colorful rug. “Summer?” he moaned, trying to find himself. It hurt. Summer was beside him, her thin nightgown a whisper of sound as she clenched into a ball and shook under the coffee table. “Oh, God. Summer. I can’t believe you did that.”

Wiping the sweat from his face, he put a hand on her back, feeling her shake. “Summer?”

She didn’t respond.

“Summer!” He yanked her to him, wrapping himself around her to try to ground her. He knew the signs. She was in full overdraft, and if he didn’t destroy the extra timelines, she would go insane trying to reconcile them.

But it felt as if there were hundreds instead of the usual one, and he couldn’t find her under them.

“Listen to my voice. Focus on my voice. Let me in,” he said, his tone calm but his mind frantic as he fumbled for her, gasping when she found the presence to reach out to him like a drowning victim.

His early training as an anchor took over, and as he held her body to his, he wrapped his mind around hers, trying to pull her from the chaotic slurry of memory as if he might draw her from a raging white-water river. But it was too strong, and as one, Silas and Summer fell back into her mind.

They screamed as a hundred choices begetting a thousand realities cascaded from her to him. He floundered as never-realized timelines raced through him, not as red-smeared shadows, but as fully realized memories, each of them right, each real. Not knowing what to keep or what to destroy, he began burning them all, erasing everything of that night in the dance club, be it the first memory, the last, or the thousand in between.

The rapid staccato of his heart was a thunderous roar, and as Summer shook in his arms, he felt his body begin to shut down. Still he struggled, but for every timeline he erased, a hundred more lay under it, vibrating through her, shaking her memory to a homogeneous slurry of everything all at once.

It might have been better to not even try.

With a sudden realization, he knew there was no way out. They were both going to die.

His anger rose hot: anger that he had failed her, anger that the thing they’d thought would save them would instead betray them. It burned everything until, for a single moment, there was peace.

I love you, he whispered, their thoughts mingling as one.

And in that perfect moment of clarity, she shoved him out.

Jerking violently, he found himself on the floor of their apartment.

“Summer,” he rasped, gasping as he realized she lay in his arms, deathly still, her face still holding the pain of cheating the universe.

“Summer! No!” he cried, but she was gone, and he could do nothing but hold her, grief shaking him as he howled great racking sobs, seeing all and unable to change anything.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

His suit fit perfectly. It was lightweight and breathed well, and it didn’t ride up his shoulders when he reached to shake everyone’s proffered hand. He’d bought it to wear to his graduation, but when this afternoon was over, he was going to give it to Goodwill, even if it was probably the most expensive outfit in the visitation room full of the academy’s finest down to the lunch lady. Summer was well liked.

Had been well liked, he thought, immediately knowing it had been a mistake.

It was still raw in him, and his hand clenched. But the cut-crystal glass with the weak red punch in it didn’t shatter. Not like his world. Not like everything that had given his life meaning. Fragile. For all their strength, they were so fragile.

“Almost done, Silas,” Allen said from beside him, awkward in his flat-black suit. Peri was on his other side in a classy black dress cut high about her neck. Her hazel eyes were solemn with an eerie understanding he was afraid to ask her about, and she wobbled slightly, her heels too high. Maybe she was trying to look not-so-small beside him.

“I’m done now,” Silas said, and he set the tiny goblet on the side table to undo his tie. It was a whisper of silk in his hands, and it reminded him of her hair.

Silas’s fingers faltered. His body froze, and he struggled to breathe. Thank God there was no casket. He couldn’t bear to look at her again.

Peri pushed into his space, motions rough as she slapped his hands away and reknotted the tie. “Don’t give them the satisfaction,” she said, flicking her eyes to where Professor Milo and Professor Woo stood with the rest of the department heads.

Across the room, Karen, Heidi, Ethan, and Beth clustered, gossiping with the other newly graduated agents. Their punishment had been revoked in light of the situation. It was only Allen and Silas who would be required to repeat their entire last year, a reprimand for Summer dying and making the news. At this point, Silas couldn’t care less what they did to him.

Silas’s eyes bored into Professor Milo as the man turned to look at him. His chest hurt, and he swore when Professor Milo touched the shoulder of Professor Woo and they started his way.

“Easy, Silas,” Peri said, reading him correctly.

“Dr. Denier,” Professor Milo said, an odd, solemn nervousness about him as they scuffed to a halt. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Summer will be missed.”

Professor Milo’s hand was extended, and Silas didn’t take it, even as Professor Woo’s expression pinched in worry. Silas wanted to smash Milo’s face. He wanted to shove him into the wall and beat him senseless. The best he could do was nothing, his lip twitching as Peri dug her fingernails into his arm—grounding him.

“Silas already hit you once,” Allen said. “Just keep talking, and he’ll do it again.”

Professor Woo gave Milo a nudge, and he let his arm drop. “I am sorry,” Milo repeated, turning to go.

Silas choked. “She did change the past,” he managed, voice breaking, and Milo slowed, head cocked. “Don’t you ever forget that.”

Pausing, the man rubbed his arm. The entire campus remembered him getting shot, but there wasn’t a mark on him. Neck red against his stark white shirt, he walked to the door.

“I’ll see you tomorrow for lunch,” Professor Woo said, touching Silas’s elbow in parting before hustling after Milo.

Peri exhaled, eyes following the retreating men. “I don’t know you well enough to say if that was good or not.”

“Good,” Allen said, sweating as he took Silas’s discarded punch and downed it. “Real good.”

Time was weird stuff. Everyone on campus including Milo himself remembered a timeline where he had been shot. There was blood in his car, and a hospital report—even used bandages in his trash and pain meds by his sink. But by the way Professor Milo shoved the door open as he left, Silas could tell there wasn’t a mark on the man. Day by day the differences that had been created were being rubbed out by the passage of time. Except for Summer’s absence.

“It’s going to be okay,” Allen said, frowning at everyone avoiding eye contact. “The semester will start up in a few months and things will get better.”

“Not for me,” Silas said, not wanting to find a new normal. “I quit.”

Peri jerked. “Silas, you can’t,” she blurted, far more distress behind her eyes than he was comfortable with.

“I can’t do this,” he said, hunching his back and turning away from the room. “Everything I make, they pervert into ways to control and manipulate. I’m not going to do it anymore,” he finished.

But no one said anything, and finally Allen cleared his throat.

Turning back around, Silas flushed. An older woman dressed in L.A.’s latest business-casual red was standing before them, her hair styled and the scent of expensive perfume making his nose wrinkle.

“Can I help you?” Peri said, her tone telling the woman to go away.

“Oh, yes,” the woman said, rings flashing as she handed Silas a card. “And I can help you,” she added decisively. “You want to make them accountable? Come see me. Don’t wait too long. There is a time window.”

“And who are you?” Peri said belligerently.

“All of you are invited,” she said, not answering Peri’s question. “I insist. All three of you. Tomorrow. Noon. Address is on the card.”

“Hey. Lady,” Allen began, but the woman patted his arm with a practiced false warmth before turning to walk to the door.

“Fran Jacquard,” Peri said, having taken the card from Silas. “Who does she think she is?”

Grim, but feeling a sense of purpose, Silas took the card back and tucked it away. “Poetic justice.”

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PROLOGUE

2025

The room was a featureless eight-by-eight, the monotony relieved by a single chair and the door pad softly glowing in the recessed overhead lights. Pulling up from a stretch, Peri stifled a shudder as a feeling of electricity crawled over her skin, pooling where the training suit pinched.

Concerned, she passed a hand over the spiderweb of white stress lines in the otherwise black leather, frown deepening when her hand turned to pinpricks as the electric field in the fabric phased. Seriously? The slick-suit ran from her neck to the tops of her boots, elevating her slight form to dangerous and sexy, but a wardrobe malfunction would slow her down.

“Hey! Excuse me?” she called toward the ceiling, her high voice laced with demand. “I’m getting excessive feedback from my slick-suit.”

A soft chime fell flat in the tiny room as the audio connection opened. “I’m sorry,” a man’s voice said, the hint of sarcasm telling her they knew it. “Possible suit malfunctions are acceptable under the parameters of the exercise. Begin.”

Again the chime rang. Adrenaline surged with her quick intake of breath. She didn’t see the cameras, but people were watching, comparing every move to an unattainable perfection. Squandering a cocky three seconds, she stretched to show her confidence along with her lithe shape. Challenge one: technological fence, she thought, glancing at the locked door pad.

In a swift motion, she grasped the back of the wooden chair, flinging it into the wall. It hit with a startling crack of wood, and she knelt before the pieces. Nimble fingers bare of the slick-suit’s gloves sifted through until she found a metal pin. Rising, she padded to the locked door and used it to wedge open the door pad.

This task is mine, she thought, then walled it off, concentrating on the maze of wires until she found the one she wanted. Hand fisted, she tensed to yank one of the wires free, then hesitated. With her “malfunctioning” suit, she might end up on her ass, blowing out smoke as she tried to remember how to focus. Not worth the risk, she thought, following the wire back to the circuit board and shorting the door with the pin instead. The ceiling chimed her success. Peri saluted the unseen cameras, smug as the door slid open. Eleven seconds.

Pin set between her fingers to gouge, she dove into the cooler air and into a spacious, spongy-floored room. The ceilings were higher, the light brighter, and at the far end, a closed door beckoned, the light on the lock already a steady green. Beyond it was everything she’d been working for, everything she’d been promised. She just had to get there.

A faint whisper of air gave her warning. Peri ducked, lashing out with a back kick to send a man pinwheeling into the wall. Shit, he’s huge! she thought as his slick-suit flashed white. But it was fading to black even as she watched. He wasn’t out of it—yet.

“Nothing personal, right?” she said, her eyes jerking from his holstered weapon to the two men sprinting toward her. Three against one wasn’t fair, but when was life ever?

They attacked together. Peri dropped, rolling to take out the closest. He fell and she swarmed him, jabbing his throat with her elbow. There was the telltale thump of a pad, but she’d struck hard enough to make him gag. His slick-suit flashed white as she rolled to her feet. One down.

The second grabbed her, a glass knife shadowed with electronics at her throat. Screaming in defiance, she stabbed his ear with the chair pin. He howled in real pain, and she threw him over her shoulder and into the first man, now recovered.

Following them both down, she scrambled for his blade, running the glass training knife across both their throats. The glow of the technological blade against their skin flashed, indicating a kill, and their slick-suits turned white. Gasping, they went still, paralyzed. Real blood, looking alien on the training floor, dripped from the one man’s ear.

Peri straightened, keeping the pin as she turned her back on the men and walked confidently to the distant door. No more lame excuses, she thought, the adrenaline high still spilling through her, though shifting to a more enduring burn of anticipation. She’d been working toward this for months. How many times did she need to prove she was ready?

With a heavy thunk, the lights went up. At the door, the pad shifted to a locked red.

Peri jerked to a halt. “Excuse me?” she directed at the ceiling, and the audio connection pinged open.

“You failed to demonstrate proficiency with projection weapons,” the man said, but she could hear an argument in the background.

Peri cocked her hip, knowing the time was still running, ruining her perfect score. “You mean a gun?” she asked with disdain. “Handguns are noisy and can be taken away, and then I have to do more damage to fix it.”

“Your time is still running,” the man said, smug.

“How can I prove my value if you keep changing the rules?” she muttered, stomping back to the three men, still paralyzed in their white slick-suits. Jaw clenched, she snatched the nearest man’s handgun. “I already killed you,” she said when the man’s eyes widened, and she spun, shooting out the cameras in the corners instead: one, two, three.

“Reed!” the man shouted as his screens undoubtedly went black.

Peri dropped the weapon and waited, shaking the pinpricks from her fingertips. The audio channel was still open, and a smile quirked her lips as she caught some argued phrases, “best we have” and “it’s that shitty attitude of hers that makes her perfect.”

Glancing at her watch, Peri shifted her weight. “So am I going, or do you want me to try it again with feeling? I have stuff to do today.”

There was silence, and then a younger voice took the mic. “You will report to medical tomorrow at nine. Congratulations, Agent Reed. It’s yours.”

Her breath caught, the quick intake lighting a fire all the way to her groin, and then she steadied herself. “Friday,” she countered, ignoring the men behind her, groaning as their slick-suits returned to a black neutrality. “I want to say good-bye to my mother.”

Again the silence, and Peri’s good mood tarnished as she caught a whispered “might not remember her when she gets back.”

“Friday,” the young voice finally said, and Peri’s jaw clenched at the pity in it. Her mother didn’t deserve anyone’s pity, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to say good-bye.

The lock shifted green, a solid thump echoing as the door opened onto an empty, white hallway. Her thoughts already on a shower and what was in her closet that her mother might actually approve of, Peri paced forward into the light.

CHAPTER

ONE

FIVE YEARS LATER

Peri Reed reclined in the plush leather chair across from the CEO’s desk, her feet up on the coffee table, enjoying the adrenaline pooling as she waited in the dark for Jack to find what they had come for. His mood was bad, but that wasn’t her fault. Bored, she helped herself to a foil-wrapped, imported chocolate from a nearby dish.

“Really, Peri?” Jack said at her mmm of appreciation.

“So hurry up.” Licking her lips, she deftly folded the foil into a tiny hat, which she set jauntily on the statue of the naked woman holding the dish. “This guy knows his chocolate.”

“I prepped for glass. Wave technology isn’t even on the shelves yet,” Jack complained, his tan face pale and distorted through the holographic monitor. The touch-screen projection hazed Jack’s athletic shape and black Gucci suit, and Peri wondered whose ass the CEO of Global Genetics was kissing to get the new holographic touch-screen technology.

“My good heels are in the car. Waiting. Like me,” she prompted, and he hunched, his jabbing fingers opening and closing files faster than a texting fourteen-year-old.

Impatient, Peri stood and ran a quick hand through her short black hair. Her mother would hate its length, insisting that a woman of quality kept long hair until she was forty, and only then allowed it to be cut shorter. Moving to the window, Peri smiled at her manicure in perverse satisfaction. Her mother would hate the color as well—which might be why Peri loved the vibrant maroon.

Shaking her hem down to cover her low-heeled boots, she exhaled her tension and focused on the hazy night. The black Diane von Furstenberg silk jumpsuit wasn’t her favorite, even if it had been tailored to fit her precisely and was lined with silk to feel like ice against her skin when she moved. But add the pearls currently in the car with her heels, and it would get second and third glances at the upscale pool hall she’d picked out as a spot where she and Jack could decompress.

If we ever get out of here, she thought, sighing dramatically to make Jack’s ears redden.

The projected monitor was the only spot of light in the office suite with its heavy furniture and pictures of past CEOs. Surrounding buildings were lit by security lights dimmed to save power. Low clouds threw back the midnight haze of Charlotte, North Carolina. This high up, the stink of money had washed away the stink of the streets. The corruption, Peri thought, stretching to run a finger over the lintel to intentionally leave a fingerprint, is harder to hide.

“One of these days, that’s going to bite you on the ass,” Jack said as she dropped back to her heels. Her print would come up as classified, but it would also tell Opti that they’d been successful—or at least that they’d come and gone. Success was beginning to look questionable. Five minutes in, and Jack was still searching for the encrypted master file of Global Genetics’ latest engineered virus, the hidden one that made it race-specific.

The faint clunk and hum of the elevator iced through her. Her head tilted to the cracked door, and she shocked herself with the sweet candy still on her lips. She never would’ve heard it had the floor been busy, but in the silence of a quasi-legal, government-sanctioned break-in . . .

“Don’t leave my sight,” Jack demanded as he hooked the rolling chair with his foot and pulled the leather throne toward him to sit. His fingers hesitated, jabbed the holomonitor, then waved the entire field to the trash. His brow was furrowed, and the glow of the projection made his face appear gaunt and his blue eyes almost black. Feeling sassy, Peri sashayed to the door, liking being paid to do what anyone else would be jailed for. Jack looked too sexy to be good at the computer stuff, but in all fairness, he was as proficient as she in evasion and offense. Which is why we’ve survived this long, she thought as she slipped the flexible, palm-size wafer of glass out of her pocket and powered it up. Her Opti-augmented phone was glass technology, and up until seeing the CEO’s wave, she’d thought it was the best out there. Hitting the app that tied into the building’s security, she brought up the motion sensors.

The screen lit with a harsh glow. Dimming it, she crouched to peer into the secretary’s office. One wall of the outer office was open to allow for a view of the common office area beyond. Intel said the night guard was cursory, but intel had been wrong a lot lately.

The app finished its scan and vibrated for her attention. No movement, she thought as she looked at the blank screen, not trusting it. “I can’t do my job from here,” she whispered, tensing when the elevator hummed to a halt and a beam of light lit the ceiling. Keys jingled. The translucent screen in her palm lit up with a bright dot. Shit.

“I can’t do mine if you leave my sight,” Jack said. “Stay put, Peri. I mean it.”

Arcs of harsh light played over the ceiling—closer, coming closer. Adrenaline coursed through Peri once more, and the soles of her feet began to ache. “Catch,” she said, rolling the phone into a tube and tossing it at him. He scrambled for it, his silhouette tight with anger against the city lights.

“Let me know if we get more than one,” she said as she yanked on her pendant, jerking the tiny felt marker from its cap. “Otherwise, keep working.”

“Don’t go out there without me,” he said, his sudden alarm at the click of the pen uncapping jerking through her.

“Just find the files. I’ll be right back.” J IN OFFICE she wrote on her palm, avoiding him as she blew it dry, recapped the pen, and tucked it behind her top.

“Peri . . .”

“I wrote a note,” she said, nervous at his angst, and she slipped out, easing the door nearly closed behind her. Dropping to the flat carpet, she wiggled across the receptionist’s office and peered around the end of the desk, propping herself up on the flats of her arms to wait for a visual on the guard. Jack was right to be concerned. He had to witness a draft to anchor her. But to fail meant the deadly virus might reach an already decimated Asia.

That’s why they were here, to find and remove the files concerning the virus before a second wave of death washed through what had once been nearly two-thirds of the world’s population. Opti had commissioned the first wave three years ago, when Asia’s political hierarchy thumbed their noses at the new CO2 levels set by the United Nations and therefore threatened the entire world with continued rising global temperatures. But this second wave of tactical bioengineered population reduction was illegal, funded by the Billion by Thirty club with the sole intent of broadening their financial interests in Europe. Peri thought it amusing that she and Jack had helped almost half of its members gain their admission.

The light on the ceiling became focused. Warning prickled her skin as the jingling keys grew louder and a uniformed man came around the desks. Peri’s brow furrowed.

It wasn’t the guard that Bill, their handler, had told them would be here. This man was younger and thinner, and wasn’t singing along with his phone. As Peri watched, he tucked his flashlight under his arm and used a card reader to go into one of the private offices ringing the floor. Lips pressed, she waited until the guard came out with a square bottle of something sloshy.

Damn. He was a lifter: familiar with every office and comfortable with treating the building as his personal, no-card-required shopping mall. The best case would have him on the alert for anything out of the ordinary as he strove not to get caught. The worst case would have him in the CEO’s office sampling the chocolate.

Breath held, Peri crept back to Jack. He looked up from her phone as she eased the door shut, frowning when the lock clicked on and a red light from the door pad glowed in the dark. “Don’t leave my sight!” he whispered, yelling at her in a soft hush.

“We got a lifter,” she said, and Jack’s fingers hesitated.

“He coming in here?”

“Give me a second, I’ll go ask him.”

Mood sour, he returned his attention to the crystalline projection. Peri padded over for her phone, breathing in the light scent of his sweat as she tucked it away. Her mind drifted to the sensation of his touch on her skin as his quick fingers searched folders and files. “Maybe the files have a biometric lock?” she suggested.

“No. I simply think it’s not here. We might need to hit the labs downstairs,” Jack grumbled, doing a double take when he realized her lips were inches from his ear. “Peri, back up. I can’t work when you’re that close.”

“The labs? Good God. I hope not.” Peri leaned to put her arms across his shoulders. Her bag—filled with all sorts of interesting things that needed an artist’s touch to get past TSA—rested on the desk, and she wondered if she should get something out of it, but everything was noisy. “Why don’t you shut it down. He’s just shopping, and we’ve got all night.”

“It’s not here,” he muttered, and she pushed off his shoulders and went to listen at the door. Hearing a sliding clatter, she roughly gestured for Jack to cut the light. Grim, Jack stood, fingers still flicking files about the screen. “I thought wave technology had a sleep corner,” he whispered.

Peri tensed. Footsteps. Coming closer. “Shut it off. Now!”

Jack’s face was creased in the dim glow. “I’m trying.”

The guard was in the secretary’s outer office, and she settled into a balanced readiness beside the door. He was coming through it—she knew by the prickling of her thumb and the itch in her feet. “Damn it, Jack. I haven’t drafted in six months. Don’t make me do it now.”

“Got it!” he whispered, fingers waving across the monitor as he found the off switch.

“Got it” wasn’t good enough, and with a tiny beep from the locking pad, the door clicked open and the security guard came in, flashlight searching.

He was a cool customer, she’d give him that. Silent, he took in Jack, standing behind the desk like a guilty teen found looking at his dad’s porn. Expression twisting, the man dropped the bottle and reached for the pistol on his belt.

Peri moved as the bottle clunked on the carpet. The man yelped, shocked when her crescent kick slammed out of the dark and into his wrist, knocking his handgun into the secretary’s office. Hand to his middle, the security guard dropped back. His shock turned to anger when he saw Peri’s slim figure cloaked in chic black. True, it looked suspicious, her in the dark and in an upper office where she had no right to be, but add some jewelry and Louboutins, and she was ready for a five-star restaurant. “You’re nothing but a little bitty girl,” he said, reaching for her.

“I prefer the term fun-size.”

Grinning, Peri let him grab her, spinning around and levering him up and over her shoulder. He’d either go where she sent him or he’d dislocate his arm. He went, hitting the carpet with a muffled thump.

“Ahhhhoow!” the guard groaned as he pulled the unbroken whiskey bottle out from under him. The flashlight rolled, sending shiny glints across the black panes of glass.

Jack frantically worked at the computer, his head low and blond hair hiding his eyes.

Enjoying the chance to take the big man down, Peri gathered herself to fall on him. Eyes wide, the guard jerked away, and she changed her motion into a heel jab that never landed, then fell into a ready stance between him and the handgun. We have to get out of here, like now.

The guard spun upright, fumbling for the radio on his belt. “Put a wiggle in it, Jack!” she exclaimed, lashing out with a crescent kick, a front kick, then a low strike to his knee as she drove the guard back—anything to keep him from his radio. She loved the adrenaline, the excitement, the knowledge that she had what it took to beat the odds and walk away without reprisal.

The man shook it off, and she lashed at his ear, lurching when she hit his jaw instead. A solid thump on her right shoulder sent her reeling. Peri stumbled, feeling the coming bruise. Anger fueled her smile. He was good and liked to cause pain. If he landed a clean strike, she’d be out—but beating those odds would only make her win more satisfying.

“Quit playing with him!” Jack shouted.

“I need to burn off some calories if I want cake tonight,” she said as the guard felt his lip, thoughts shifting behind his eyes when his fingers came away shiny with blood. Suddenly he ran for the door and his handgun.

“We’re having pie, not cake, and stay where I can see you,” Jack called.

She jumped the guard, snagging a foot before he reached the door. He went down, dragging her across the carpet. Chin burning and eyes shut, she let go when he kicked. Peri jerked away, gasping when the guard turned, looming over her with his fist pulled back.

“No!” Jack shouted as the guard struck her full in the face and her head snapped backward. Dazed, Peri wavered where she sat.

“Don’t move! Or I fucking shoot her!” the guard shouted.

She couldn’t see straight. The gun pointed at her held no meaning as she tried to figure out what had happened. Dizzy, she felt her face, jerking when the pain exploded under her fingers. But it focused her, and she looked at Jack behind the desk. Eyes meeting, they silently weighed their options. Jack had a handgun and she had a blade in her boot. They’d never needed extraction from local authorities in their entire three years together. She wasn’t planning on starting now, and certainly not getting fingered by a dirty rent-a-cop.

“You at the desk!” the guard barked, and Peri’s gaze on his handgun narrowed as she estimated the distance. “Come here where I can see you,” he said, one hand fumbling behind his back for his cuffs. “Hands up. You make a move to lower them, and I shoot her.”

Hands in the air, Jack edged out from behind the desk. He coughed, and the barrel of the guard’s gun shifted to track him.

“Bravo!” a clear, masculine voice exclaimed from the doorway.

The guard turned, shocked. Peri lashed out in a spinning kick. Impact against the guard’s hand vibrated through her even as she followed through and rose into a crouch and from there to a stand, the flat of her still-swinging foot slamming into the guard’s head.

Spittle and blood sprayed and the guard crashed into the coffee table. His handgun fell, and she kicked it to the far windows. Jack went for the man in the doorway. Knowing he had her back, Peri followed the guard down, fist clenched to hit him somewhere painful.

But the guard was out, his face bloody and his eyes closed. Resisting the urge to hit him anyway, she looked up as Jack shoved an older man in a suit into the office at gunpoint.

“Impressive,” the man said, nodding to the guard. “Is he dead?”

“No.” Peri stood. What the hell? she thought, unable to read Jack’s tight expression. This couldn’t be a test. They’d already had their yearly “surprise” evaluation job.

“Good. Keep it that way,” the man said as if he was in control, regardless of having no weapon, if Jack’s hasty but thorough pat-down was any indication. “I’ve been meaning to take him off the payroll, but I’d prefer unemployment over a death benefit to his wife.”

This isn’t how we do things, Peri thought as Jack shoved the man into one of the cushy chairs, where he fixed his tie, affronted. Peri looked from the slightly overweight man to his photograph on the desk, posing with a stiff-looking woman in too much makeup. This was his office. Bloody toothpicks, Bill will have a cow if I off a CEO.

“I have what you came for,” the manicured, graying man said, his soft fingers reaching behind his coat to an inner pocket.

Peri lunged. Her knee landed between his legs and he gasped at the near miss. One hand forced his head back; the other pinned his reaching hand to the arm of the chair. “Don’t move,” she whispered, and irritation replaced his shocked pain.

He wiggled, wincing when she shifted her knee a little tighter. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t be here myself,” the man said, his voice strained but angry. “Get off me.”

“Nah-uh,” she said, fingers digging into his neck in warning, then louder, “Jack?”

Jack eased close, the scent of his aftershave familiar as he reached behind the man’s coat to slip free an envelope. It had Jack’s name on it, and Peri went cold. He knew we’d be here?

“Get off,” the older man said again, and this time, Peri eased back in uncertainty.

Jack passed his handgun to her, and she retreated to where she could see both the CEO and the downed guard. The crackle of the envelope was loud, and the older man readjusted himself, giving Peri a dark look. “What is it?” she asked, and Jack unfolded the paper inside and shook a pinky-nail-size memory chip into his hand. “Is it the files?”

Her attention shifted to the CEO when he palpated his privates as if estimating the damage. “No. I printed out the highlights to justify my request. You tell Bill that what I found warrants more than a paltry three percent,” he said, shaking his arms to fix the fall of his coat. “Three percent. I just saved his ass and he thinks I’m going to take three percent?”

“Jack?” Peri whispered, disliking her uncertainty. He knows Bill? What’s going on?

Face white, Jack angled the printed page to the faint light coming in the window. Fingers fumbling, he tipped the chip onto his glass phone. It lit up as the data downloaded, and Jack compared the two, going even more pale as he verified it.

The man leaned toward the side table, his gaze lingering on the foil hat before he took a chocolate from the dish. “You’re very good, missy. Watching you . . . I’d believe you myself.” He smiled, white teeth gleaming in the ambient light.

Jack looked more angry than confused. Peri’s gut knotted. The CEO knew Bill. Was he proposing a deal?

“You made a mistake.” Jack folded the paper around the chip and tucked it away with his phone.

The man snorted and put an ankle on a raised knee. “The only mistake is Bill thinking he can get something for nothing. He can do better. I only want a fair price for what I have.”

Shit, Peri thought, her alarm mutating to anger. He was trying to buy them. They were Opti agents. Drafters and anchors had to be trustworthy to a fault or the government that trained them would literally kill them. Drafting time was too powerful a skill to hire out to the highest bidder, especially now.

Fear settled in her like old winter ice, cracked and pitted, as Jack cocked his head at the angle he always had when he was thinking hard, and a weird light was in his eye.

“Jack?” she said with sudden mistrust. “What’s that list?”

His expression cleared. “Lies,” he said blandly. “All lies.”

The CEO bit into a chocolate. “The truth is far more damning than anything I could invent. It’s a list, lovely woman, of corrupt Opti agents,” he said as he chewed. “Your name is on it.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photograph by Myra Klarman Photography

KIM HARRISON, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows series, was born in Detroit and, after gaining her bachelor’s degree in the sciences, she moved to South Carolina, where she remained until recently returning to Michigan because she missed the snow. When not at her desk, Kim is most likely to be found landscaping her new/old Victorian home, in the garden, or out on the links.

FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: authors.simonandschuster.com/Kim-Harrison

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Pocket Star Books

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Kim Harrison

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First Pocket Star Books ebook edition August 2015

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ISBN 978-1-5011-3424-1

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

The Drafter Excerpt

Prologue

Chapter One

About the Author