Out of the Box 7 - Sea Change (2 page)

“KAT!” One voice thundered over the rest, snapping her head around and ruining her perfect poise. If she hadn’t been wearing her glasses, she might have risked someone seeing exactly how displeased she was all the way up to the eyes. They were wrathful, she was sure, as she searched the crowd for the person who’d yelled so loud as to startle her. She took a breath, trying to let out the bad energy, and her eyes settled on the bastard who’d—

Oh.

Oh, shit. Not—

Oh, wait.

This could be good, after all.

Scott Byerly waved a hand from the edge of the crowd, a little sheepishly, his face flushed at the sudden attention his beyond-booming voice had gotten. Paparazzi were looking sideways at him, shaking their heads at the new guy as she stared straight at him.

“What is it?” Taggert asked, suddenly at her shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Kat said, a warm tingle replacing her surprise as she pondered the advantage, the nice little gift that had just been dropped in her lap like a free Prada purse. She raised her voice, knowing that her camera man, Wayne, had just gotten close enough to get a good angle on her, and that Mike, the sound guy, had his boom microphone hanging overhead to capture her and Taggert’s conversation until they could put field mics on them again. She raised her voice so that it could be captured for the show, for her fans—

For ratings.

“It’s my ex,” she said, trying to put a little horror into the way she said it. “He must be following me.”

November in Minneapolis was a crappy time to wear a dress, and yet here I was. It was the first week of November, and I was wearing a dress in downtown Minneapolis, freezing my freaking buns off even after having been inside for ten minutes. It was enough to make me want to light off a Gavrikov in the room, but that would have set fire to the spotless white table cloth in front of me, the soft-backed chair under my rump, the classy carpeting beneath my flats—I don’t do heels—and probably, eventually, make its way across the table in this all-too-fancy restaurant and light my date on fire.

It would have been nothing but an improvement, I assure you.

My date’s name was Ricardo, but he did not appear to be Latin in any way. I know looks can sometimes be deceiving, but his last name was Smith. I think. Actually, I’m not really sure. Maybe he’d said it when he’d introduced himself, but I was already pretty underwhelmed by that point and might have been actively tuning him out. Why? you ask.

I’m glad you asked.

This whole thing was an internet dating setup. Bowing to pressure from some quarters (Ariadne, Reed, Ariadne, Augustus, Ariadne, Dr. Zollers, oh, and did I mention Ariadne?) I had decided to start dating again. It had been a while, after all. Like, years, since I’d last had a boyfriend. “I’m fine,” I told them. “I’m a modern liberated woman, who doesn’t need a man,” I said. Also, it’s not like I’d been super lonely or anything. I had my career, I had—well, I didn’t have a dog anymore because he’d turned out to be a spy for my enemies shifted into canine form, but I had a new TV! And that was better.

Also, Ariadne was still rooming at my house. Presumably because she felt sorry for me. I had been really nice, too, not bothering to point out that she was like 2.5x my age and heading toward old maidhood
muy rapido
, as Ricardo’s non-existent Latin forbears would have said. Is that racist? Why would it be? This dude was whiter than Hollywood director meetings.

Anyway, I was sitting in the fanciest seafood restaurant in Minneapolis across from a douche named Ricardo (just ditch the “o” and add an “h” so you can become the Dick that your name and nature compel you to be, guy), only half paying attention to the menu and wondering how long I’d have to be there.

Oh, I haven’t told you why he’s a douche yet, have I? My bad.

I arrived at the restaurant early, because that’s the classy thing to do. Richard-o showed up fifteen minutes late, and when he introduced himself, he gave me the once over, plainly checking out my ass in this dress (it looks good, dammit) and made a hmmph-ing noise of disapproval.

Also, he’d already tried to order my drink for me, even though I was sitting right in front of him and possessed of all my speech capabilities at the time.

This is why I don’t date. Also, because I can consume the souls of my fellow human beings with only the touch of my skin on theirs.

But mostly because of this. And because these sorts of dates make me want to consume the vapid, lightweight souls of dudes like Dick-o here like crackerjacks right out of the gym-toned bodies that hold them.

The waitress, a lovely young lady named Wendy, who wore a shining name badge on her spotless white outfit with sharply creased black pants, meandered over for the third time with our drinks perched on a plate. I eyed them hungrily and she gave me a tight smile. She’d been standing between us at the round table when Dick (let’s just drop the pretense that he should be called anything else) had made his bold gambit of telling me what I wanted to drink, and she’d shot me a “Can you believe this guy?” look of solidarity.

Can you believe this guy? No. No, I can’t.

“Oh, good,” Dick said as Wendy positioned herself once more between us at this itty-bitty little table in the middle of the room. The dining room was pretty packed, all done up with neon blue tones. I half expected them to pull back a curtain at the back of the restaurant to reveal an aquarium where they harvested the fish we were going to be eating. “I think I’m almost ready.”

Wendy smiled at me, clearly trying to lead Dick out of rudeness against his natural instincts. “And are you ready to order, ma’am, or do you need a few more minutes?”

“I am well prepared to order,” I said, putting the one-page menu down. “In fact, the sooner, the better. Maybe we can even skip the appetizers and soups and just get right to the main event.” So we can get the hell out of here as quickly as politeness allows me to.

I know, I know. Why am
I
bothering to be polite?

Because I promised I would, of course. Duh. It’s one of the therapy things that Dr. Zollers had me working on, and I could already see the disappointed gleam in Ariadne’s eyes if I came home before nine. She’d treat it like a personal affront, maybe even see it as an insult, since she’d been the one to help me pick out this particular Dick. I don’t know why she’d take it so personally, she doesn’t even like d—

Uhh, never mind. She’d taken over my mom’s room, and I was beginning to fear she’d picked up some of the passive-aggressive (mostly aggressive) qualities of its previous occupant.

“Question,” Dick said, still staring at the menu. He’d yet to actually acknowledge Wendy’s arrival with eye contact, like, you know, a human being would. “Is this lobster locally sourced?”

Wendy blinked away her surprise very quickly. “Uhm, no,” she said, and it sounded a little strained, like she was trying to hold in some laughter. “It’s freshly caught Maine Lobster. Just flown in this morning.”

“Hmm,” Dick said, staring at the menu as though it held the secrets of life. “Is it ethically raised?”

That raised my eyebrows, and Wendy’s as well. “Ah, well,” she said, recovering admirably quickly, “it’s fresh, so it was raised in the ocean until it was caught, and then kept alive in a tank in the back—”

“Yeah, but is it ethically treated?” Dick asked, finally looking up to fix poor Wendy with a very serious look that I couldn’t take seriously. Was this Dick actually trying to act like he had some sort of conscience? Because thus far, I had him figured for a psychopath. Having known a few in my time *
cough cough
* Wolfe and Bjorn *
cough cough
*—

Hey
, Wolfe said in my mind.

Guilty
, Bjorn said, clearly cool with my diagnosis, maybe even proud of it.

—I felt qualified to at least hazard a guess in Dick’s case.

“Well,” Wendy said, a smile plastered on her face that reminded me of the way Jackie, my agency’s press secretary, looked on camera right before she was about to lose her shit on national television, “once you order one, we’re going to drop it, still living, into a pot of boiling water while it screams in pain until it dies, and then once it’s cooked, we’re going to bring it out and you’re going to crack open its shell and eat its muscles, so … not sure you’d consider that ethical, but …”

“Mmhmm,” Dick said, nodding seriously. Definite psychopath. “Hm. What about—”

“Okay,” I said, dropping my menu on the table. “I have to go to powder my nose.” Which was possibly a euphemism for commit suicide in the most painful way possible. Wait, second-most painful. This date was pretty much first-most painful at this point.

“You’re not even wearing any makeup,” Dick said with a sneer.

There was a slight gasp from Wendy, who grimaced but quickly caught herself, covering her mouth to hide her surprise and giving me a sympathetic look. “I was being polite,” I said, barely hanging on to my civility. Think of poor Ariadne, and how devastated she would be if I come home early and with a sad story about disemboweling my date with my bare hands. She’d look at my bloody dress and the smile of satisfaction on my face, and she’d be so disappointed. “I need to take a giant, massive steaming dump and deliver it to the toilet.”
And his name is Ricard-o,
I did not add but seriously wanted to. I shot Wendy a look. “Would you mind telling me where the restroom is?”

“I’ll show you the way,” Wendy said, trying hard to hide a smile as she gestured toward the bar. With deft fingers she picked up my drink and set it on her tray, beckoning me away from the king of all jackasses.

“Thank you,” I said, brushing past Dick with Wendy trailing in my wake.

“I’ll just wait here, then, I guess,” Dick said, spitting sarcasm. “Starving to death or something.”

“I think that’d be the ethical thing to do,” I muttered under my breath, loud enough for Wendy to hear me as we headed toward the bar. I heard her snicker as we snaked through the crowd of tables toward it, a giant, polished, warm wood contraption that stretched from one end of the room to the other. It was filled to the max, and I could see a corridor beyond, likely the entry to the kitchen, the bathrooms, or both.

“Do you actually need to go?” Wendy asked, handing over my drink, some kind of fruity, delicious-smelling thing.

“Nope,” I said, guzzling the sugary, boozy excellence in one gulp. “Gonna need a few more of these if I’m going to go back over there, though.”

She made a face. “Why would you even think about going back over there?”

“Guilt,” I said. “Not for him. For my, uh, mom-figure.”

“Mom guilt is a powerful thing,” Wendy said with a bob of her head as she sidled up to the end of the bar with me in tow. “Blanchard,” she said, catching the attention of a dark-haired guy behind the bar. “I’ve got a lady here who needs another.” She took my glass carefully from between my fingers and waggled at him.

Blanchard made his way over, his face a little pale. “Did you see what’s going on right now?” He chucked a thumb at a small TV behind the bar that was tuned to one of those cable news networks. It was subtly hidden in the décor, a nice little diversion for the crowd at the bar that maybe wanted to enjoy their drink without conversation. I could sympathize.

“What’s going on?” I asked, trying to hone in on what was being said; I couldn’t quite get it over the roar of a thousand conversations in the bar.

“A plane’s about to crash in Milwaukee. They lost their pilot and co-pilot and they’re about to run out of fuel.” He glanced at me and did a double take. “Hey, aren’t you—”

“Is there an exit back there?” I asked Wendy, almost breathless. She nodded, and I was off in a flash, my dress fluttering in the wind as I blew through the back door and out into the frigid Minnesota night.

Dammit. I forgot my coat.

The promise of the beach was beckoning to Scott Byerly—salt air, warm sands, a pleasant breeze across the crowded ocean shore. He’d gotten a glimpse of it on the way to his meeting, and the waters had called to him, but he’d done the right thing and gone to the meeting, trying his best not to think of how it’d feel to put his toes in the water and walk on the sand once he was done.

The LA heat was a little much for him, but the crowd he’d seen just outside of his very own meeting—the reason he’d even come to Los Angeles in the first place—had been a weird thing for a Minneapolis native to behold.

“What the hell is that?” Scott had asked Buchanan Brock, a tall, powerfully built man in his fifties. Brock was a man looking to do business with Scott’s father, and so he’d been asked to take the meeting. After an hour and a half of pleasantries, he felt like he’d gotten a little swept up in Brock’s charm.

“This is Hollywood, son,” Brock said, his deep voice laced with some amusement. “Probably some starlet or another.” He’d nodded his head when the crowd went into a buzz. They’d been standing just outside Brock’s office; his host had walked him all the way out when the meeting was done, engaging him pleasantly the whole way. “Looks like it’s that one girl, the new meta one that everyone’s talking about.” His tall forehead wrinkled. “Say, don’t you know her …?”

Scott had lost focus as soon as he’d laid eyes on Kat.
How long has it been since I’ve even seen her in person? Probably right after the—after … well, Sovereign …

His feet had carried him, unexpectedly, toward the crowd of paparazzi and flashing cameras. His senses had compelled him in the other direction, toward the beach, toward water—this whole town felt dry as a desert gulch. Normally he could pull water out of air like a magician with a rabbit and a hat. It was an uncomfortable sensation, akin to mid-winter in Minnesota, when the air was this dry. It was like being buried up to his neck in sand, and he was just dying to loosen the tie he’d worn into his meeting with Brock, maybe leave it aside as he dipped toes in the ocean.

Instead, he found himself pulled toward Kat, crossing between a shining, gleaming, glass-fronted building and a black SUV looming just at the edge of the crowd of paparazzi. He watched her graceful crossing; she was moving slowly, though, way slower than she needed to. She was walking funny, too, and it took him a second to realize she was posing for the cameras, her face frozen in a look he couldn’t recall seeing on her face at any point in their relationship.