The Spy Is Cast (4 page)

Both men eyed me
expectantly as I approached the door. There was no visible card
reader, so I didn’t quite know what to do. As I bent to examine the
latch, I recoiled from a sudden light emanating from what looked
like a deadbolt keyhole.

Webb chuckled. “You
have to stand still for the retinal scan.”

I backed away from the
door. “Since when do you have my retinal scan on file?”

“Since you showed up
at the hospital last March,” Kane explained. “When they brought you
in, they thought you were a Sirius employee so they scanned you.
The record was kept on file.”

I vaguely remembered a
bright light shining in my eyes. “Tricky bastards.”

Kane shrugged, the
corner of his mouth crooking up. “Occupational hazard.”

I gave him a rueful
twist of my lips and stepped up to the door again. This time I held
still for the scan, and the latch clicked as the heavy door
released. We all stepped through it into a silent enclosure only a
few feet square. The door closed behind us with a muffled thump,
and I heard the latch engage. I stepped up to the door on the other
side of the room, and let it scan me, too.

Nothing happened.

My heart began to race
as I whipped around to eye Kane and Spider for reassurance.

“Thirty-second time
delay,” Kane explained.

I took a deep breath.
Then another. It was a very small room. All concrete. The top of
Kane’s head was only a few inches below the ceiling. I turned away
from the other two, controlling my breath. In. Out. Slow like ocean
waves. My palms started to sweat.

I stared at my watch,
counting the seconds down.

“Aydan, I’m sorry,”
Kane’s voice was strained. “I forgot you’re claustrophobic. Don’t
worry, we’re not trapped here.”

“Is there a
thirty-second time delay to get out, too?” I asked, my voice a
little tighter than I’d intended.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” Kane
repeated.

The latch in front of
me released and I snatched the door open to stare down into a
featureless concrete stairwell. There was a closed steel door at
the bottom. My knuckles whitened on the door handle.

“We can go back out
right away,” Kane told me, his voice calm and soothing. “Just turn
around and we’ll go back out.”

“What if there’s a
fire?” I demanded, my hand still clenched around the handle. “How
does everybody get out?”

“There’s a
state-of-the-art dry fire suppression system,” Webb explained. “Any
fire can be suppressed in ten seconds or less, regardless of how it
starts.”

“Don’t those suck all
the oxygen out of the air?”

“Not the new ones that
we’re using,” Spider reassured me. “This is so safe that the gas is
used as a propellant in asthma medications.”

I breathed carefully.
The air smelled clean and fresh. I gradually uncurled my fingers
from the door lever. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Kane searched
my face.

I nodded. “I can do
this.”

“Are you sure?”

I did some more deep
breathing. “Yeah. It was just the surprise that got me. I’m fine.”
I started down the stairs, hiding my quivering knees.

The door at the bottom
released immediately, and I stepped into a brightly lit white
corridor. Glassed-in rooms lined each side, and I recognized the
raised flooring that accommodated computer cabling beneath it.
There was a constant flow of fresh, cool air. I breathed deeply,
forcing my shoulders to relax.

Spider stepped
forward. “This way.”

To keep myself
distracted, I eyed the windows while we walked down the hallway.
Some rooms contained computers and electronics, and others were
full of test tubes, glass gizmos, and microscopes. In a couple of
rooms, lumpy equipment defied my imagination. I hadn’t a clue what
it might be used for, and I didn’t think I really wanted to
know.

Near the end of the
corridor, Spider held his fob up to a prox pad and stood still for
the retinal scan. When he opened the door, we all trooped into a
small room lined with computer screens. Webb dropped into a chair
with casual familiarity and pulled out a desk drawer.

“Sit, get
comfortable.” He waved an airy hand, and Kane and I each pulled up
a chair.

At the back of the
drawer, Spider punched in a sequence of numbers on a keypad. When
the compartment released, he lifted out a black velvet box and
handed it to me. “Here you go, Cinderella,” he joked. “Don’t lose
it, or you might turn into a pumpkin.”

I opened the box,
tentatively touching the emerald necklace inside. The large jewel
was square-cut, set in a simple, elegant collar of heavy gold
links.

“Wow. That’s a bit of
a change from the old amethyst key ring.”

Spider returned my
smile. “We damaged the original amethyst when we extracted the
circuitry the first time around. We’ve done a better job with this
one, so we can actually remove the electronics without destroying
the setting. That way we can place the circuitry anywhere we want.
Since you’re going to a black-tie gala, you get the fancy necklace.
Try it.”

I lifted it
reluctantly out of the box and placed it around my neck, fumbling
with the clasp under my hair. The cold weight of the gold against
my skin made me control a shiver. It was a good match for the cold
weight of fear on my heart.

I dragged my mind back
to the job at hand. “I don’t suppose you fixed the pain issue while
you were tinkering?”

Webb shook his head
regretfully. “We think you get pain because your brainwaves aren’t
a perfect frequency match with the network. Without a modulator,
your frequency is close enough to get you in, but not close enough
to let you get out comfortably.”

“You couldn’t put a
modulator in here?”

Webb grimaced. “We
could. But that would make it visible if somebody was monitoring.
As it is, it’s completely passive and undetectable. Without you to
drive it, it’s useless.”

“And you still haven’t
found anybody else who can use it?”

“No. Our pool of
candidates is pretty small, since this technology is so highly
classified.”

“It’s so good to be
special,” I mumbled. “Okay. Is the network accessible from
here?”

“Yes,” Kane replied.
“I’ll go in with you. Webb will monitor the sim externally. Nothing
can go wrong.” He said the last words with determination, and I
nodded.

He gripped the Sirius
fob that would grant him network access, and I laid mine aside,
making sure I’d be using only the emerald’s hidden circuitry to get
in.

“Okay. Let’s do it.” I
closed my eyes and concentrated on stepping into the white void of
the virtual reality simulation. Kane popped into existence beside
me almost simultaneously. Instead of his real-life T-shirt and
jeans, he wore full combat gear with a sub-machine gun slung across
his broad chest.

I gazed up at the
mountain of camo-clad man as he scanned the void tensely. “I think
you’re going to scare the locals.”

He directed a grim
gaze down at me. “I don’t care. I’m not taking any chances.”

I gave him a faint
smile. “Well, you’re not going to get any argument from me. Let’s
get a room.” I realized what I’d said as soon as the words left my
mouth. “I mean, let’s get out of the portal.” Kane’s face relaxed
as I felt a flush climb my cheeks. “You know what I meant.”

He nodded, one corner
of his mouth crooked up. I turned away, flustered, to visualize the
corridor. When it materialized in front of us, one of the doors
popped open and John Smith himself stepped out. At the first
movement of the door, Kane pushed me behind him, unslinging his
weapon in a fast, smooth motion. Smith froze, goggling at the
business end of the large gun.

I eyed him with
distaste. Even in the simulation, his avatar’s clothes were
mismatched, rumpled, and food-stained. And he hadn’t bothered to
eliminate his disgusting body odour, either. I breathed through my
mouth. This research facility was probably the only place in the
world where a man like that could be promoted to department
head.

Smith nodded slowly
and carefully as Kane lowered the weapon. “Kane. Ms. Kelly. I see
you’re beginning your tests.” He eyed the necklace around my neck.
“It would be better if you concealed that.”

“Right, sorry.” I
tucked it inside the neck of my blouse.

Smith gave us a wide
berth as we continued down the hallway to a room with a ‘Vacant’
sign.

“God, that guy gives
me the creeps,” I muttered, closing the virtual door behind us. I
gazed around the blank white room, thinking. “Okay, I’m going to
try to be somebody else now. I guess it’ll have to be somebody I’m
familiar with, or I won’t be able to hold the illusion.”

I pondered for a few
moments. “I think I’ll be a man. If you’re going to go for
deception, might as well go whole hog. I’ll see if I can be my
husband.”

“Your ex?” Kane
inquired.

“No, I’ll be Robert.
The one I actually wanted to keep. That way even if they do figure
out his identity, they can’t hurt a dead man.”

Kane frowned. “You
were widowed young. The death record said heart attack?”

“Yeah.” I clammed up
and concentrated.

“Um,” Kane said.
“Aydan. Clothes?”

I glanced down at
myself, seeing Robert’s naked body. “Oops. Last memory. Sorry, too
much information.” I waved a hand and Robert’s favourite plaid
shirt and jeans wrapped around me, or, more accurately, around him.
I looked up at Kane. “How’s that?”

“Fine, I guess. You
certainly don’t look like yourself.”

I conjured a mirror
out of thin air. For a couple of seconds, my dead husband gazed
back at me before dissolving to leave me staring at my own face in
the mirror. I turned away from Kane. Two years after Robert’s
death, I was mostly okay.

“Yeah, that was close
enough,” I said when I could trust my voice.

Kane’s voice was quiet
behind me. “Want to take a break?”

“No, let me try that
again.” I forced a chuckle. “With clothes this time.” I
concentrated again, turning back to face Kane. “How’s this?”

I gave a quick
downward glance. Good, I was dressed this time.

He nodded. “You look
the same as last time. But this is really a little disturbing,” he
added with a crooked grin.

I laughed, feeling my
body change back as I did. “And it’s really damn hard to maintain.
The instant I stop concentrating, I go back to being myself.”

“I think that’s good
news.” He gave me the full grin this time, and I laughed and nodded
agreement.

“Okay, but here’s the
tricky part,” I said. “Now I need to go out of the network, and
then come back through the portal again, being Robert. Can you
stand in the portal and watch for me? I want to make sure I’m fully
disguised right from the first instant I enter.”

He nodded. “Let’s
go.”

We left the room and
retraced our steps down the hallway to the virtual exit door. “Back
in a flash,” I told him, and stepped out.

Expecting the pain
didn’t help. And I’d forgotten how much it really hurt. Some of my
more creative obscenities leaked through my clenched teeth while I
screwed my eyes shut and held my head.

“Welcome back,” Spider
said when I cracked my eyes open. “Thanks for the vocabulary
update. There were a couple of those I hadn’t heard for a while.”
He was smiling, but his eyes were concerned. “I wish this didn’t
hurt you so much,” he added.

“But just think of all
the new language you’d miss if it didn’t,” I groaned, straightening
up. I glanced over at Kane’s immobile body, staring into space from
his chair. Still waiting for me in the network portal,
obviously.

“Okay, let’s see how
this goes.” I concentrated on stepping back into the network,
wearing Robert’s body.

Kane stood at parade
rest, waiting for me. “Aydan?” he asked cautiously.

“Yeah. I’m getting
better at this.” I took a few experimental steps. “This feels so
weird.”

“Tell me about it,” he
said.

I laughed, and my
simulation vanished. I stretched. “That feels so much better.”

Kane nodded. “No
offense to your late husband, but it looks a whole lot better,
too.”

“None taken on his
behalf. Okay. I’m going to try it once more. Here goes.”

I stepped out again,
managing to restrict myself to some inarticulate groans this time.
I breathed through the pain, straightening slowly.

Spider nodded
approval. “That looked good on the monitors. You can quit now.”

“Just once more.” I
rolled my neck and shoulders.

“Why put yourself
through more pain?”

“Because if my
simulation slips and I show up looking like me, there’s a whole lot
more pain where that came from. And I won’t get to choose when and
where it happens.”

Webb’s young face
hardened. “I see your point.”

I shrugged one more
time to loosen my knotted muscles, and stepped back into the
network again.

Kane nodded. “All
right, that looks fine. Anything else while we’re here?”

“Nothing I can think
of.” I sighed and stepped out again, curling down in my chair to
wrap my arms over my pain-wracked head. My lips moved while air
hissed through my clenched teeth, creating an unpleasantly sibilant
string of curses. I straightened gradually, pushing myself up with
my hands on my knees.

Two sets of eyes
regarded me with disquiet. “That can’t be good for you,” Spider
observed, frowning.

I massaged my temples
tenderly. “Let me know if my brain starts to leak out my ears.” I
rolled my neck and shoulders some more.

“I’m done here if you
are,” I said to Kane. “What do we do next?”

“Next we drive to
Calgary. I go home and get some sleep. You go…” He paused. “Did you
ever sell your house?”

“Yes, finally, last
month. Thank God.”