Echo 8 (7 page)

“Songwriter. I'm a musician. I
was
.”

Jake shuffled his feet through another pause, and Tess said, “Listen, I need to go upstairs for a while. But there's something I want to try, and it's safer to do it now, while you're still feeling strong.”

The hairs stood up on the back of Ross's neck. He twisted the door handle.

“Will you put your hand against the window for me?”

*   *   *

Tess turned at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Ross came out of nowhere, inserting an arm between her and the door.

“I can't let you do that, Dr. Caufield.”

She scanned the hallway behind him. “Were you in the observation room all this time?”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I should have let you know I was back. I didn't want to interrupt.”

It was difficult to ascertain how sincere he was because of his controlled exterior.

“Well, there are two of you now.” She glanced at Agent Swain, standing a few yards from the door, and steeled herself for the battle to come. “I want to try an experiment with Jake.”

Ross stared at her, his tone icy calm as he replied. “You almost died last night, Doctor.” His eyes moved over her and she flushed, knowing her legs shook from the effort of supporting her weight.

He was right. But when it came to Ross, it somehow felt like they had the history of a failed relationship between them. All defensiveness and mistaken assumptions. She was no longer sure when she was asserting herself professionally or reacting to him personally.

“Jake is a gift, Ross,” she said, matching his all-business tone. “And he's
my
subject. If you keep interfering, we'll learn nothing from him. This is not what you were sent here to do.”

The agent's expression darkened. “I was sent here to protect you. And what you seem to most need at the moment is protection from yourself.”

Resentment flared, burning through the dregs of her strength. Her breathing shallowed from the hard work of remaining upright.

But uncertainty gnawed away the edge on her anger. What if he was right about this too? Jake was important—her work with him was important—but what if she was risking herself just to spite Ross?

She needed time to think. Turning from Ross, she said, “We'll talk soon, Jake.”

“Okay, Doc,” he replied. When she reached the end of the hallway she heard him murmur, “You're in over your head, G-man.”

 

O
FFERINGS

The Higgs boson essentially holds the universe together. It gives particles mass, which allows them to bind together and form things, like stars and planets and Donald Trump's hair.

—Rex Huppke, “God Particles for Dummies,”
Chicago Tribune
online

T
ESS NEEDED
sleep to cope with Jake. She needed sleep to cope with Ross. But there was so much to do. She was halfway through an email to the task force when her body decided to take what it needed.

Two hours later she was awakened by a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” she croaked. It was Ross, of course. There was hardly anyone else left.

“I brought a peace offering,” he replied through the door.

She couldn't help smiling at the conciliatory tone. “What makes you think I want to make peace?”

“Oh, I think you do. Don't you want to know what it is?”

How did he know she was childish about surprises?

She sat up in bed, shoving her laptop to one side and running a hand through her hair. “It's not locked.”

The door opened and in he came, carrying a tall paper cup in front of him like a shield. The coffee was from the café down the street. The cup bore the silhouette of an angular man who looked like a century-old, film noir version of Ross—fedora, trench coat, and pointy shoes. Cigarette, complete with a little curl of smoke.

The smell reached her before he did, and she held out her hands.

“I apologize,” he said, handing it over.

Their fingers brushed as hers closed around the cup. The chill had crept back over her while she slept, but the contact—with both the cup and the man—warmed her.

“And what are you apologizing for, Special Agent McGinnis?” She gave him a tired smile. “Just so I'm clear which element of your behavior struck you as inappropriate.”

He fixed his eyes on her, dark gray and inscrutable. It occurred to Tess that he was the only person she'd ever known with sexy eyelids—heavy and slow-blinking, like he'd just woken up, no matter what time of day.

“The remark I made about protecting you—it was unprofessional.”

Tess sipped her coffee. Double twelve-ounce latte, no syrup. Observant. But then he
was
an FBI agent. “I accept your apology. I apologize too.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Don't look so shocked.”

“What are
you
apologizing for, Doctor Caufield?” He almost smiled. It touched his eyes but not his lips. “Just so I'm clear which element of your behavior struck you as inappropriate.”

Tess studied him, gauging his mood. He was guarded, as usual, but his expression had lost the closed-off, professional coolness. It was as good a time as any to start again. To let go of that unfortunate first meeting and try to find a better footing for their working relationship.

“I know I can be naïve, Ross,” she began. “But I do understand you're answerable to your superiors and not to me. I know the work we're doing here is too important not to be closely monitored by Washington. Especially now that we've got one of them
here.
”

The tight line of his shoulders relaxed. He waited for her to continue.

“I work with people on a very personal level. I'm guessing it's not what you're used to, but I don't know how else to be.”

Ross turned, grabbing the armchair across from the couch and angling it toward the bed before sitting down. “You
are
a psychologist.”

“And a researcher. I'm used to being completely open with my colleagues. Sharing information. I'm used to them trusting me. I'm used to being able to trust
them
.”

He leaned his elbows on his knees, causing those David-like muscles in his arms to bunch and flex, stretching the thin cotton of his T-shirt. The damned sexy eyelids lowered to half-mast, and he looked up through his eyelashes at her. Long, black eyelashes no man had a right to.

“You and I don't trust each other,” he said.

“Right.” Tess sighed. “It's driven me crazy since the day you arrived. At first I thought it was
you
driving me crazy.” Ross chuckled against his folded hands. “But really, I think it's because I know I can't build the kind of working relationship with you I'm used to. It makes me uncomfortable.”

Ross nodded. “I can understand that. I just don't know that there's anything I can do about it.”

“No. It's one of the things I need to accept about you, so we can move on. I'm also trying to accept that you can't tell me everything about why they sent you. But, Ross—”

“There's something you want from me in return.”

She ran her thumb over the image on the coffee cup. “I need to take the lead in managing Jake. You can report whatever you want—whatever you need to—to the people you work for. But you have to let me make the decisions about how to interact with him. About how to study him.” She glanced up. “Do you think you can do that?”

Ross took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. “I'm trying. I really am. You have to understand … it's not that I don't trust you to do your job, but it's my responsibility to keep you alive. Goff's only been dead a week. The French scientist was killed two weeks before that. We can't afford to keep losing Echo experts.” He leveled his gaze at her. “And you take risks, Tess.”

She nodded. “Yes. But we won't learn anything new if we don't take risks. The whole body of scientific discovery rests on that premise. Jake's important to my research. He and others like him are critical to resolving this crisis—something we
all
want. And the clock is running down for him.”

Ross covered his face with his hands, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers. He thought for a minute, and he said, “His life is not more important than yours. If we can agree on that, I will make more of an effort to take care of my responsibilities without interfering with yours.”

He dropped his hands and looked at her, and she nodded. “Agreed.” She drained the last of her coffee and set the cup on the nightstand. “Are you ready to go back downstairs?”

“Are you? You look exhausted.”

Noting the half circles under his eyes, she smiled. “That makes two of us.”

“I didn't almost die last night.”

“Hmm, true.”

As she slipped on her shoes he said, “Dr. Bakshi wants to check you before she goes. Why don't we do that first?”

She didn't want to spend another minute away from her fading subject, but she'd just agreed to compromise. “Okay, good idea.”

*   *   *

Jake was still able to come to the window when she tapped on it, but he moved slowly, and he'd lost the catlike sense of alertness. Just over twelve hours had passed, but leaving Tess alive may have also left him with less than a full charge.

“Isn't there some law of physics that says mass can't be lost?” Jake said, glancing at his semitransparent arm. “I'm pretty sure I'm short about half a measure.”

“You think you're joking,” said Tess, “but there's a biophysicist on our team that believes your degeneration—and regeneration—has to do with the Higgs field.”

“God knows I love it when you speak geek, Doc. But you'll have to explain that one.”

“The Higgs field is a sort of cosmic goo that imparts mass to subatomic particles. Without mass, they'd flit away at the speed of light.”

“Is that what's going to happen to me?”

“We don't know for sure, but…” Tess trailed off as something occurred to her. “It's interesting you used the phrase ‘thick like honey' when describing the energy transfer.”

“Yeah?”

“The Higgs field has been described as a pool of molasses.” She tapped her fingers against her arm, thinking. “It's easy to pick up a foam packing peanut from the ground. But if you submerged it in molasses—or honey—you'd have to work a lot harder to pick it up. That's basically how the Higgs field works.”

“So you think I might have been feeling this Higgs field. The Higgs field in
your
universe.”

She shrugged. “A few months ago it would have sounded crazy. We don't discard anything anymore.”

She fished around in her pocket for a notepad, but found she didn't have one.

“I'll text you,” said Ross from behind her.

Jake shifted in the window, peering over her shoulder. “So, did you guys kiss and make up?”

Tess rolled her eyes as warmth spread over her cheeks. “There was a kid like you in my kindergarten class, Jake.”

“Wow, I'm sorry to hear that.”

“One time he called me ‘Messy Tessy,' and I got so mad I threw my shoe at him. From that point on he said it every time he saw me.”

Jake grinned. “You going to huck your shoe through the door, Messy Tessy?”

“It was a bid for attention. The best way to stop it is to ignore it.”

“So I like making you blush, Doc. It's not like I have anything else fun to do.”

“You do now. I want your cooperation with an experiment.”

Jake looked uneasy. “Yeah?”

“I want to see if we can conduct an energy transfer through the window. Glass has low conductivity. I think it might help to slow the transfer.”

Jake's expression hardened. “Fuck that.”

She raised her eyebrows, startled by the change. “What's wrong?”

“I like you, Tess. You're sexy and smart and kind.” His gaze slid to one side as his features softened. He chewed his lip, and his gaze pulled back. “Your life's worth more than mine. I won't do it.”

Surprised by this uncharacteristically earnest pronouncement, she hesitated, studying him. “We're going to be careful,” she argued softly. “We won't even touch each other. Ross and Agent Swain are right here. There's nothing to worry about.”

“G-man, have you gone to sleep on the job again?”

Before Ross could reply, Tess said, “You'll die if we can't make this happen.”

He gave her an anemic smile. “Everyone I love is dead, Doc. I don't
care
.”

She moved closer to the window, holding his gaze. “If we
can
make this happen, we may be able to teach others to do it. Maybe no more of you have to die. Maybe no more of
us
have to die. This is bigger than you and me, Jake.”

He sighed and slumped against the doorframe. “God, you're annoying.”

Guilt warred with relief. She was using him, she knew. The poor man had lost
everything
. She couldn't begin to understand how that must feel.

“Thank you.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“Step away from the door, Doctor,” said Ross, touching her arm.

She turned, prepared to remind him of their agreement, but he beat her to it.

“I'll do it,” he said.

She blinked at him. “You?”

“You're not strong enough to do this again. Remember our agreement.”

Her gaze moved between Ross and Jake. “I don't know that I'm comfortable risking your life on my experiment.”

He frowned. “But you're comfortable risking your own?” Before she could reply he continued. “You said you were going to be careful? No touching?”

She nodded. “Yes. Hands close to the glass. I want to see if it will work without actual contact. I thought you could pull me away if I got in trouble. I don't think I can pull
you
away.”