Continuance (16 page)

“I wouldn’t really call it a fight.”
Stuart leaned in close, lowering his voice. “I told Ivory I had to spend a
couple of hours down here today. See you later and all that. No big deal,
right? But then she asks if I got her that visitor pass so she can come along.
I let her know I asked for it, but the old bag decided not to issue one. She
told me today.” Stuart swiveled in his chair, throwing up his hands. “Then Ivory
gets all miffed. I ask her what’s wrong and she says, ‘Nothing. It’s just I
have three chapters to read and thought I could hang out with you while I did.’
Then she tells me with all the time I spend down here, there’s not much left
over for her. Then she gets all frosty and walks out.”

Jason sniffed. “I guess a week’s long
enough for her. What does she expect? You asked for the pass. It’s not your
fault Dr. F. said no. Forget about it. Ivory can deal with it.”

Stuart nodded, idly spinning his AP in a
circle on the console. “Yeah. You’re right.” He resumed his prep tasks, ticking
off another item on the checklist on his photoscreen.

But Jason could tell Stuart was having
hard time blowing this one off. He’d been taken with Ivory from the beginning,
but Jason had never seen him spend so many brain cycles on a girl before. The
monumental hypocrisy of that notion registered, and a laugh escaped Jason’s
lips.
How many brain cycles have I burned on Michelle? Aren’t I the mole
calling the bat blind?

Stuart mistook him, furrowing his
eyebrows. “I’m glad you find this so funny, you sensitive bastard. You’re a
great help.”

Jason held up his hands in defense. “Fine,
I’ll help. Let’s go out tonight. On me. If she wants to spend time with you, let’s
do it. Maybe some liquid frown remover will do her some good. You too.”

Stuart seemed to consider for a moment.
“I could probably throw back a stout or two.”

“Oh, that’s brilliant,” an alto voice muttered.
Jason hadn’t noticed Chaela by the door. She wore her auburn hair loose as
usual, lab coat buttoned over a black mock neck top. She shook her head as if
to herself as she came in and took the console next to Jason.

Stuart bristled. “What’s that supposed
to mean?”

Chaela shrugged. “Nothing. A token trip
to the bar with the guys? I’m sure it’s the perfect plan to make things all
better with your girlfriend.”

“She has a point, Stu.” Ivory might not
be appeased by the prospect of hanging out with her boyfriend while his
roommate tagged along. Jason blurted the question that came to mind, regretting
it right away. “What if it was a double date?”

“Double with who?” Stuart asked. “Wait. With
her
?”

Chaela seemed as surprised as Stuart. “I
don’t think so.”

Jason thought about denying he’d had her
in mind, but it was too late now. Besides, even though she and Stuart were oil
and water, Chaela seemed to get along with Ivory in class. Having her along
might be good.

“Hey, you started this,” Jason told her.
“Now you’re backing out when we listen to your advice?”

“Backing out? I was never in.”

Stuart studied her, seeming to consider.
“Jason’s right. You should come.” Though he didn’t seem pleased.

“Great. It’s settled then,” Jason said.

As he spoke, Dr. Fairchild stepped into
the room, and three heads turned as one. “Jason. My office, please?” Her tone
left no room for discussion, but at the same time it seemed…distracted? As
quickly as she appeared, she was gone again.

Jason felt the eyes of the other two on
him, as if they suddenly wondered if he had some communicable disease. “You
guys just figure out where we’re going tonight. I’m driving.”

Jason found Dr. Fairchild at her desk, a
curved surface of some sandy-colored composite that made no pretense at being
natural, or even “faux,” anything. Her lab coat lay across a chair, and her dark
grey business suit to accentuated the silver of her hair, the gold of her
necklace. Above the desk, her fingers fluttered over and around a rotating
projection of what looked like a network of cells. To one side sat some type of
award from the university in the form of a crystal obelisk, the engraving of a
raised hand holding a torch suspended inside. To the other, 3D snapshots,
presumably of friends and family, faded from one to the next above a smaller
disc shaped photoscreen.

For a long moment she didn’t acknowledge
him, leaving him to study the virtual window covering the back wall. The 3D
feed could have been piped in from anywhere in the world, but Lindsay
recognized the flagstone courtyard with the flowing fountain – the same one he
passed each day on his way in, though from a perspective several stories up.
The projection had good resolution. Jason could make out the yellow and blue
arc of a rainbow in the tiny droplets of mist around the fountain. A nice touch
for an office four stories underground.

As he was about to ask Dr. Fairchild if
he should come back later, she turned a sharp stare on him.

“Would you mind closing the door?”
Something in her voice caught Jason’s attention, a difference he couldn’t quite
put his finger on. The distracted tone was gone, but neither had her usual brisk
professionalism returned.

He pulled the door shut, about to sit
down, when she said, “Lock it, please.”

Jason paused, but did as he was asked,
then took a seat.
This doesn’t sound like a quick request for data entry.

“I thought this might be a good time for
us to sit down for a chat. You may be interested to know Agent Grieves paid me
a visit today.” From the casual way she said it, she might have been suggesting
he’d be interested to know they’d be painting the walls beige.

And this was turning out to be a good
day.

“Why would I care who comes or goes down
here as long as they’re authorized?” He watched her closely for her reaction. The
person who had something to hide always saw watching eyes as suspicious eyes. Knowing
that had taught him never to assume people knew something until they offered
proof. “The DIA checks in from time to time, don’t they?”

Dr. Fairchild laughed quietly, as if to
herself. “So glib. So practiced. But then again, you have to be, don’t you?”
She rested her elbows on the desk, fingers interlocking to form a steeple
beneath her chin. “Tell me. Have you found who you’re looking for in Arkive
yet?”

The room suddenly seemed smaller, almost
stifling. She knew. Somehow, she knew. Still, unless she could prove it, better
to take a page out of the twentieth-century presidential playbook and avoid
admitting anything.

“I’m not sure I follow you, professor.”

“Of course not. But perhaps this will
put us on the same page.” She tapped a few more keys, and a file appeared in
the air above her desk. It was oriented to face her, but Jason could see
through the projection well enough to make out a pair of familiar-looking
photos near the top. She reached up with a finger and gave it a twirling
motion, flipping the projection around to face him.

A prickle of adrenaline seethed beneath
his skin. He stared at the pair of images. On the left, the shaggy blond hair
and green eyes he saw in the mirror every day now. On the right, a vaguely
similar face with the same strong cheekbones and full mouth – but with close-cropped
brown hair and blue eyes. Patrick’s face.

Jason’s let his attention shift to the
names underneath the photos.
Jason Day.
Patrick Dawes.
Other
information spilled out below. The date he was continued. The location.

This is a Chrysalis record.

Dr. Fairchild sat in her chair, hands
folded neatly in front of her again. Waiting.

Stunned, he met her eyes, level gaze for
level gaze. “Where did you get this?”

“It was sent to me for safekeeping,” she
said, as if the fact were obvious. “As they all are.”

She sighed, then leaned forward with a
small shake of her head. “It’s funny – a little embarrassing, really. When you
applied to Chariot, we only subjected you to our standard background check.
Detailed, to be sure, but still the very same type of check we designed your online
records to pass with flying colors.”

She gave a rueful laugh. “Essentially,
we fooled ourselves. We should have checked Chariot personnel against our own
databases too.” She nodded toward the file in the air between them. “I’ve seen
perks in action before, but after your performance during the imaging session a
few days ago, I finally corrected that oversight and looked you up.”

Well, I wanted
proof. Doesn’t get much more concrete than that.
Jason knew the
door was locked, but couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder, anyway. “You’re
with Chrysalis.”

“A fact I’m
putting myself at considerable risk to share with you.”

A dozen
questions swirled in his mind, jockeying for position. For some reason, the one
that came out first was the one he cared about least.

“How in the
world does a person with connections to Chrysalis end up in charge
here
?
And with full access to Arkive on top of it?”

Dr. Fairchild
raised an eyebrow. “Chariot is a Chrysalis initiative. Besides, the spiders and
the university know nothing about my connections, and there are very few people
with my specific knowledge. Getting in was probably even easier for me than for
you.” She tapped a few keys, and Jason’s photos disappeared, leaving only empty
air in their place.

Jason thought
for a moment, answering his next question for himself. “Arkive. You’re taking the
biorecords, too. All of them.”

Dr. Fairchild
rose and stood with her back to him, looking down on the courtyard through the
virtual window as a couple walked up and took a seat together beside the
fountain.

“Our attempts to
hack in and steal them became too dangerous. It seemed the best way. Chariot
gives us the perfect pretense for legitimate access to Arkive. Without hacking
a single DIA firewall. Of course, you’ve already figured that out.”

She turned to
face him again, a concerned look in her eyes. “Unfortunately for both of us,
this little arrangement may be in jeopardy now.”

“Why? Because of
that agent that was here? Grieves?”

A hard edge
crept into her voice, one Jason hadn’t heard before. “Because you've gone and
kicked the beehive just when we had our hands on the honey. Agent Grieves was
the first to come buzzing. I’m afraid he’s cut off our access to Arkive.”

Cut off?
If he’d heard the
news a week ago, he would have been devastated. Now that he knew Viceroy had
continued Michelle, Arkive was less important to him. But the impact to
Chrysalis would still be dramatic. And what did this new restriction have to do
with him?

As if reading
his thoughts, Dr. Fairchild paced over to the virtual window, watching the
scene as she went on. “You were absent from class yesterday. And the lab.
Absent the same day my supplier for bioprints failed to make a scheduled
delivery. I found out later it was because he’d been caught by the spiders.”

Jason inhaled a
breath.
Alex.

“Am I wrong to
assume there’s a connection?” Dr. Fairchild asked, turning to face him.

“No.” Jason
sighed. “No, they arrested him just before we were scheduled to meet. They
missed me, but I stayed away yesterday in case I was compromised.” With Alex’s
release, he’d been sure they’d dodged the bullet cleanly. Now it looked like that
might have been an illusion.

“I’m sorry if
I’ve made trouble for you,” he said. The situation wasn’t strictly his fault,
but if he hadn’t been meeting with Alex, Dr. Fairchild likely wouldn’t have
lost access to the database. “How many records did you manage to get out?”

“A little over a
million. It’ll take decades to continue that many. But Chariot likely
represents our last chance at this data. And you aren’t the only one with a
vested interest in someone specific.”

Of course. If
Dr. Fairchild was Chrysalis, she must have her reasons. Did she have her own
Michelle somewhere out there? Someone lost to her in the purgatory of stasis? “You’d
hoped to get them all.”

She pursed her
lips. “With luck, we still can. The DIA’s grounds for cutting off our access
are minor, not much more than a trumped-up excuse. I’ve made a couple of calls.
With luck, we’ll have access again after they percolate through the system. But
if that happens, I’m afraid I won’t be able to allow you any further access.”

Jason didn’t
hesitate. “That won’t be necessary, anyway.” There was a bigger picture to
consider here. His presence in the lab was a risk to Chrysalis, a group to which
he owed his very existence.

He stared out
the virtual window behind her. The couple was still there by the fountain, and
as he watched, they clasped hands. For a moment, in his mind’s eye, the
fountain became the violin statue on the other side of campus. He smiled,
feeling strangely at ease.

“I got away this
time,” he said. “But if I’m ever found out, it would compromise everything
you’ve worked for here. Not to mention you personally. As soon as I leave this
office, you’ll have my resignation from the lab. You can find someone else to
replace me.”