Artificial Absolutes (Jane Colt Book 1) (12 page)

Devin had more to tell her, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it—not yet. In a matter of days, his world had flipped inside out, until it had splintered entirely, leaving him a wanted fugitive with no idea as to how he could begin piecing it back together.

He might have to run for the rest of his life, because of what he’d discovered about Sarah. And hell, after everything, he still might not be able to save her.

Jane seemed to notice the change in his mood. She grinned sheepishly. “I know I ask too many questions but… just one more?”

“All right.”

“Got anything to eat in this joint? I’m starving!”

Devin turned toward the storage compartment behind his seat. He opened it, pulled out a package of food, and tossed it to her.

Jane ripped it open and regarded the nutrition bar inside with distaste. “This has been here for twelve years, hasn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“Nutritionally-optimized, chemically-preserved, imperishable space food?” She wrinkled her nose. “Lovely.”

Devin gave her a joking glance. “It’s not too late to return to civilization.”

Jane looked as though she was considering going on a rant. She raised an eyebrow with a distinct expression of not-impressed. “Really, bro? You really want to go down this path again?” Her expression turned serious. “Look, I know I shouldn’t be here. I know I’ll probably… slow you down or get in the way or something. But I also know there’s a chance you’ll have to disappear forever and…” She attempted a smirk. “I think you remember what happened the last time you tried to ditch me like that.”

Devin nodded, recalling the intense guilt he’d felt that day, when he’d carelessly betrayed the one person who had always been there for him, never asking for anything.

He checked the time on the control screen. It wasn’t late according to the time zone they had come from, but it would be the middle of the day local time when they arrived at the Seer’s location.

“You should go back to the living quarters and get some rest. We won’t have much time once we get to Viate-5, and I know how grumpy you are when you’re sleep-deprived.”

Jane popped the last bite of her nutrition bar into her mouth. “What about you?”

Devin shrugged. “I don’t sleep much.”

“All right, then.” She balled up the emptied food wrapper. “Don’t wanna wander around some sketchy desert planet in a daze.”

She got up and pressed the button to open the cockpit door. She started to leave, then poked her head back in. “You won’t try to ditch me while I’m out, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Okay, g’night!” Jane left the cockpit, and the door closed behind her.

Devin gazed at the growing yellow star that was Viate, wondering how he would tell her the rest. It wasn’t fair keeping her in the dark, with her friend involved.
Damn, why’d they have to involve Jane?

He should have told her as soon as he’d found out, but he hadn’t been able to face it himself—the truth he’d sought since Sarah froze like a marble statue.

Despite his attempts to tell himself everything was fine, Devin had soon given in to his internal disquiet and searched for answers. He had known he’d need help and contacted Corsair.

Corsair had apparently been using voice commands when he responded:

Corsair: Yeah, sure, no problem. But you’re gonna need another Netname so the bad guys won’t know what you’re up to.

Anonymous: I’m already anonymous.

Corsair: Yeah, right. Any nov could trace you, and if you level up to someone like me, you’re completely exposed. For example, your name is Devin Victor Colt, you work at Quasar Bank Corporation, and you live in the FFC Residential Complex in Kydera City.

Anonymous: You already knew who I was.

Corsair: You’ve got a 22-year-old sister named Jane Winterreise Colt who… Is that her? She got kinda hot at university…

Anonymous: Knock it off.

Corsair: Uh… Sorry. Anyhow, I sent you an attachment.

Devin opened the file and found a list of the Netsites he’d visited along with specific details about his most recent activities and movements, as well as similarly extensive facts about his father, sister, fiancée, and even some of his colleagues at Quasar.

Anonymous: Point taken.

Not long after that stunt, Corsair had sent Devin a special communications program, one that would scramble his signal, and created a veiled online identity for him.

Archangel: I told you to use “Anonymous.”

Corsair: Everyone and their pet alien calls themselves “Anonymous.” You need something with flair.

Archangel: Why “Archangel”?

Corsair: Because you’re the great avengin’ angel who took down all the demons in Legion.

Devin had been annoyed, but there was nothing he could do about it other than shake his head at Corsair’s peculiar sense of humor.

Their first move had been to look through Sarah’s records and learn all they could about her. Devin considered following her to see if she was secretly meeting someone nefarious. He abandoned the idea when he realized it could put her in danger. An online investigation would keep her physically out of it, for the time being.

No matter how careful he and Corsair were, they were always caught. The amorphous entity known as No Name seemed to target their efforts specifically. Corsair had used that information to recruit Citizen Zero, whose members were eager to find out who No Name was and why they would care so much about Sarah DeHaven.

Corsair: I’m telling you, it’s because she isn’t “Sarah DeHaven.” She’s got background info in all the right places, but every time we try to check them out, No Name blocks us. The few bits we’ve managed to get our hands on are elaborate fakes. School records, performance creds—nothing’s older than a year. No Name must’ve created them. Why else would they be so keen on keeping them hidden?

Archangel: We can’t be sure.

Corsair: Come on. Okay, so they’re amazing fakes that could only have been exposed by us geniuses, but they’re still fakes.

Devin hadn’t wanted to believe it, that the love of his life had been lying to him since the day they’d met. No Name prevented Citizen Zero from
proving
that “Sarah DeHaven” was a false identity. Yet, he couldn’t ignore the possibility.

I love you, Sarah DeHaven. But who are you?

In the meantime, he hid his apprehensions from Sarah. He couldn’t help sensing something different about her, as though her warmth had been replaced by a precise imitation.

Once, Devin had entered Sarah’s apartment unannounced and found her staring at the wall, frozen in a cold, emotionless state. A split second later, her face brightened into a demure smile. The moment had been so quick he hadn’t been sure it had happened.

Sarah walked up to him. “Baby, what are you doing here?”

“Just wanted to see you,” Devin said. “What were you doing?”

“Thinking about us.” She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I’m going to marry you, Devin. Doesn’t that make you happy?”

Contrived, as though someone had trained her to act out the motions of the person he knew as Sarah DeHaven. Nevertheless, Devin was certain that the Sarah he’d fallen for, the one who was so full of passion and understanding, was still there behind that mechanical mask, and that once he found the bastards controlling her, things would go back to the way they were.

But with no way to know who she even was, the only thing Devin could do was at least find out whether Sarah was under the influence of mind-altering drugs. When her producer called a few minutes later and she turned her attention to her slate, he quietly went into her bathroom, pulled a few black strands from her hairbrush, and placed them in his pocket.

This is absurd.

He wondered if all that time he’d spent in Citizen Zero’s virtual forums turned him into one of those paranoid conspiracy theorists.

“What are you doing?” Sarah stood behind him, reflected in the mirror.

“It was windy outside,” Devin said sheepishly. “I wanted to make sure I didn’t look messy or anything.”

Sarah blinked, expressionless. A moment later, she laughed. “You’ve spent far too much time in the corporate world. Trust me, I don’t care if you’re a little disheveled.”

The laugh had been unnerving, almost unnatural.

In spite of his doubts—and questions as to his own sanity—Devin had asked Corsair to locate someone with a background in drugs affecting the human mind. Corsair pointed him to a round-faced graduate student at one of Kydera City’s small colleges. Finding her and bribing her into testing the hair sample was easy enough.

“Seems clean.” The grad student handed Devin the results of a preliminary test. “No signs of the usual drugs.”

Devin scanned the document on her slate. “Run some extra tests. It could be hard to detect.”

The grad student took the slate back. “Whatever you say. This could take a while, so make yourself comfortable.”

Devin leaned against one of the empty lab benches and pulled out his own slate to see if Corsair had made any progress in discovering Sarah’s true identity.

Corsair: Still nothing. Check out the Collective’s forum. There’s something you’ve got to see.

He followed the link Corsair had sent him. The Collective had released several confidential documents stolen from a secretive government science program, one that developed technologies potentially in violation of the IC Tech Council’s regulations—and basic ethics. One of the technologies was a brain implant that could control a person’s thoughts and movements.

Corsair: The implant was completed years ago. She could have had one this entire time. They say they were only experimenting with it as a potential educational enhancement. You know, so people can download info instead of learning it. I think that’s bullshit.

Devin should have been surprised. Instead, he found himself numb. It made sense, more than any explanation involving drugs or behavioral conditioning. The only way to find out if Sarah had an implant was to scan her. Considering her refusal to go to the hospital previously, he knew she would never agree to one.

The grad student returned. “All right, mister, where’d you get that sample?”

Devin continued reading the leaked documents. “Why?”

“It’s got to be the best fake I’ve ever seen.”

He looked up with a start.
Fake?

The grad student held up a vial containing Sarah’s hair. “Can’t even tell it’s synthetic. Not until you get down to the molecular level. Whoever created it must be a
genius
. Wish it’d been me. But fake is fake, even if it is brilliant.”

Devin suppressed a shudder. Corsair had said the same thing about Sarah’s identity.

The grad student chuckled. “Some frizzy-haired princess must’ve paid the moon for this. Shame to see all that brainpower go into a beauty product, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” Devin wondered if the fact was relevant. Women were always doing strange things to their hair. He handed the grad student his slate. “Have you seen this?”

“Seen what?” The grad student flipped through the pages of leaked government documents. Her eyes became round. “Holy
shit
,
that’s creepy! How’s
that
okay when the Tech Council’s banned so much other stuff? The mind-control program I worked in was drug-based, and it was to get criminals to cooperate. Wait a sec, do you know someone who’s being mind-controlled?”

“I’m not paying you to ask questions.”

“Right.” She handed the slate back. “Well, I’m a chemist, so I don’t know anything about brain chips, but I can tell you this: if someone has one, it won’t be easy to find. If the government has people wandering around with microcomputers in their heads, they won’t want them finding out when they go for a checkup. It’s the same with the truth serum implants I worked with. Let me tell you, the only way to find one is to use one of those hardcore body scanners, like the kind they use when they capture terrorists to make sure they’re not bugged or something.”

Devin paid the grad student for her help and her silence. As he left the lab, he contacted Corsair to ask how he might obtain such a scanner, legally or otherwise.

Corsair: Thought you’d gone straight.

Archangel: Not anymore. I understand if you don’t want to get any more involved.

Corsair: Back out when I’m so close to exposing a government conspiracy? No way! But the kind of tech you’re talking about is only used by the most secretive agencies. Even
I
can’t get into their systems.

Archangel: What if I went directly to the people who designed the scanners? Ocean Sky or BD Tech?

Ocean Sky and BD Tech proved impenetrable. Instead, Corsair had used his special skill set to direct Devin to an independent inventor working on something similar—and who had an assistant drowning in student loans. It hadn’t taken Devin long to track him down and bribe him into letting him borrow a prototype of the new scanner.

The rotund young man handed Devin a sleek metal device. “It won’t give you the results directly. You can download the data onto a slate and get someone else to interpret it for you. It’s kind of complicated, and… Um, I’d do it myself, but then my boss would see that I’d accessed his computer… I don’t want to get in trouble, okay? Please get this back, or I’m so dead…”