Harsh Lessons (14 page)

She glared at Derek. 'We met after I ran into James's sports car.'

Derek winced, half-turning to James.  'Ah, no!  Not your beautiful Windsteed?'

'Yes, his
"
beautiful Windsteed.
"
  The same funting beautiful Windsteed we weren't going to mention tonight!'  She stood, throwing down her napkin in disgust.  'I'm going to the Ladies.'  She paused, swaying for a moment, then blinking.  Remembering a somehow frightening older man, lecturing her about male psychology.  She shook herself.  'Maybe when I return, you'll both have finished discussing the scratch on James's stand-in dick.'

James watched her stalk off, before turning to the Maitre'd with an apologetic shrug.

Derek raised an eyebrow.  'Sometimes, James, I confess I've wondered whether you were paying for your escorts to be sure of winning our bet.'

'Derek, I assure you I am not paying for-'

The Maitre'd held up a hand to cut off the protest.  'Of course not.  It's more likely your Ms Dei usually pays for
her
companionship.'  He smirked.  'You do seem to have grabbed a prickly peach this time.'

James raised an eyebrow, deciding to rub a little salt into the wound.  He stretched comfortably back in his chair.  'Well, our bet just specified beautiful
looking
women.  Though no doubt Jennifer
would
be a handful for most men.'

Derek nodded fractionally and moved away.  But considered possibilities.  Perhaps a solicitous enquiry as to injuries sustained in the collision?

He scanned his beloved restaurant, an eye motion all he needed to direct his well-trained staff.

Then noticed a solidly built man in the foyer.  The first point of concern was the privacy makeup.  Derek frowned.  Celebrities commonly used the bold, distorting patches of color to avoid facial recognition software.  But so too did criminals.  And as he took in the disturbingly blank expression in the pale eyes, the expensive suit soiled and worn, the untidy light hair uncut for a long time, he keyed for security even as the man approached.  Dead eyes panned across the diners in the room beyond, hunting.

The man stopped when Derek stood in his path.

'Do you have a reservation?'

The man didn't answer; didn't even react.  Just continued scanning the room and the diners; partly turning away.

'Sir, if you don't have a reservation I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave.'  Derek's nose wrinkled at the smell.  When had this… derelict, last washed?  'I'm sorry, our dress code, and health and safety regulations-'

The man pulled his eyes away from the restrooms.  'A girl.  You have interacted with a girl tonight.  Where is she?'

Dammit, where was security?
  'Sir, I think you may be unwell.  Do you have a booking?  The restaurant is, unfortunately, full at the moment.'

'The restaurant is unimportant.  Where is the girl that disturbs and unsettles you?'

Some new street drug,
Derek decided.  He moved, setting himself squarely in front of the larger man, blocking his entry.

Derek yelped as the man
jolted
forwards; felt himself yanked from his feet and towed into the dining area.

But deeper inside the restaurant, James had seen, and now headed calmly to intercept Derek's attacker.  A pity the Opera House had a no-handgun policy.

He needed to think fast, though: Leeth would soon return from the Ladies, and if she found a fight in progress, she'd be certain to join in.

He needed to end this quickly and quietly.

As he wove between tables, the man saw him, recognized the threat, and tossed Derek into a table.  Wine and food catapulted into the air.

Sparing only a glance at Derek, already struggling to his feet, James went to full augment.  Almost toe to toe with Derek's assailant, he spoke calmly and clearly.  'You need to leave this restaurant.'

Expecting violence, James saw the man instead consider what he'd said.  He felt Derek return, to stand at his side.

The room had frozen.

Poised, ready to act, James saw two security personnel approaching.

The man blinked; swallowed; then licked his lips.  'Apologies.  There is a girl that requires help, from this.'  The man tapped his chest as his eyes stayed on James.

This,
James wondered?  The fellow was clearly unhinged.

The man's head tilted.  'Requires help from
me.
'  His face stretched in a robotic smile, uncanny even through the privacy camouflage.  'The search…
my
search, has been long.  Sleep has been short.  The disturbance is unfortunate.'

The unsettling individual turned to depart, as the two security personnel moved forward.

'Make sure he leaves the building,' Derek instructed them.  'But remove that damned anti-face-rec makeup, first, and add his face to the Red list for the scanners.  I don't want him in here again.  Ever.  Run it through the Wanted lists, too.'

They grasped the intruder's arms.

And Jennifer returned, eyes alight, slipping up to James's side.  Sliding her hands up his arm to his shoulder, she draped herself against him; and the man spun back around.

Jennifer eyed the two bouncers dangling like giant bracelets from the arms of the man her date was talking to.  He looked… interesting.  Cold.  Threatening.  The stranger took a step toward her, and she reached out one hand, trailing it seductively down his front. 'James, what's going-'

Ice flared up her arm from the point of contact.  She stumbled to a halt, and her mind crashed down around her; visions of her Japanese father thrashing her, splinters of language spearing through her brain, and
cold
.  Cold numbing walls that pulled at her, separating her from herself, squashing down around her.  Squeezing her down.  Sealing her
in
….

As if watching, Leeth felt
Jennifer
sway, saw her clutch weakly at James's arm for support.  She tried to straighten, and failed.  Tried to scream.

And failed.

James swore, grabbing at Leeth as she collapsed against him – apparently hoping to lure the madman closer. He needed his hands free!  But now that she'd clearly decided to join in, he couldn't simply hand her off to Derek.

For his part, the large man stood gripping the collars of the two security guards, holding them down at his sides like two struggling suitcases.  James had been certain they'd been about to have their skulls cracked together – until the moment of Leeth's pretended collapse.

And
still
she clung to his arm without attacking.

Something was wrong.

More strangely, although Leeth's mere arrival had spun the man around, he now hardly spared her a glance while she clutched at James's sleeve, barely upright.  Indeed, the man had begun calmly scanning the restaurant again.

And after several long seconds, he simply let the security people back to their feet and allowed them to escort him away.

James watched them go, turning his attention back to Leeth.  But she, too, had pulled herself together.  While Derek and James paused to recover their equilibrium, Jennifer sneered at the Maitre'd.  'The food here attracts a lot of bums?'

James blinked. 
Ouch
.  That had been below the belt.  Jennifer disengaged herself from his arms in some annoyance, making her way back to their table.  James made an apologetic face to Derek and followed her. 
What the hell had just happened?
 

Chapter 15 

James was impressed.

In truth, he'd moved beyond impressed and was now into
worried
.  Leeth, as Jennifer, had stayed solidly in character throughout dinner.

Too solidly.

Several times she'd asked him a question in Japanese, then chuckled an apology and asked him again in English.  Earlier, Leeth in her Jennifer persona had struck him as an intelligent young lady, albeit with a distinctly acid personality.  But who was attracted to him, and had decided to act on that.

But he had seen no signs of Leeth now for the last hour.  On one occasion when he'd been watching her pensively, trying to see the young trainee operative he was growing fond of, she'd demanded to know why he was "looking at her like that."

He'd laughed it off – but she hadn't laughed along with him.  Had instead become suddenly wary of him.  As if they really were on a first date, and she was reconsidering her decision to spend the night with him.

He could lose this bet with Derek.  Leeth was capable of it.  Even if she thought of these exercises as games, she played them deadly seriously.

He shook his head: it made no sense.  If she made him lose the bet, she'd be terminating her own exercises.  Prematurely.  He knew precisely what Mother would say.

Surely Leeth did, too? 
Unless… Leeth was gone.
  Was Nelson's organic programming playing up?  Or the Doctor's spell?  Or both?

He
had
to charm her.

Tweaking his MetaLife settings, he prioritized the body language parsers.  Then began working – hard – to win the acid-tongued girl back over.

Derek tried one more time, at the end of the meal, as his guests paused at his station on their way out.  Having considered her expensive dress and jewelry, he felt he'd thought of some safe ground.  After a little small talk he asked, 'Tell me, Jennifer, what line of work are you in?'

She stiffened.  'You have a real talent, Derek, did you know?  As of yesterday I'm in the unemployment line.  I've just been replaced as an executive assistant by a Tik Tek Mark VII gynoid with the twelve language, executive assistant software pack.'  She smiled icily, offering her arm to James.  'Shall we go?'

Derek watched them disappear through the ferns, then let out a long breath.  'I can't
imagine
why they would have replaced you with a gynoid,' he muttered quietly, but with considerable satisfaction.

At the whispered words behind her, Jennifer's stride faltered.  Anger heating her face, she pictured storming back to stuff Derek's words down his throat.  Then sanity reasserted itself, and she put the strange thought aside.  Really, it was sort of funny.  She
had
enjoyed needling the smarmy maitre'd, after all.

She suppressed a giggle.

She wondered if she'd like the opera?  But that innocent thought triggered something deep inside her to lunge violently upwards, struggling.  Visions of herself attacking and killing the smiling, well-dressed people in the ornately decorated halls suddenly swam crazily in her head.  The strength of the desire to give in to the rage was astonishing.

'Jennifer?'  James's deep rich voice was a lifeline.  'Are you all right?'

She fought the odd visions down, locking the strange ferocity down and forcing a laugh.  'Hai, hai.  I'm fine.  Fine.  Let's get this over with.'

In the darkened concert hall, the audience sat in respectful silence.  James spared a surreptitious glance at his companion, who sat immobile, staring into space; not fidgeting; barely moving.  Just the slight movement of her chest, from strangely rapid breaths.

It worried him.

They were an hour into the performance.  By now, Leeth would normally be squirming as if the music caused her physical pain.  He looked more closely.  Was her jaw clenched tight?

He leaned in to her, placing one hand comfortingly on her knee and smiling at her in the dark.  She didn't react.

Actually, he realized in sudden dread, the flesh under his hand felt rigid.  His eyes lowered to her lap, and gingerly, he kneaded her thigh.

Feeling muscles locked impossibly tight, the limb like wood.

His hand stilled, and he turned to fully face her.  She hadn't reacted to his touch at all: just continued to sit, motionless. 
Like a ticking bomb
.

For Jennifer, it had started as a feeling of swelling pressure: an uncomfortable fullness, like she'd eaten too much.  The music didn't soothe, it jangled her nerves until they felt like they bled, raw and twitching.  And
something
responded to that, struggling like a trapped animal deep inside her.

Endure
, she told herself, gripping the seat's armrests as if anchoring herself against a storm.  Strange visions flailed and clawed at her.  A man with hooded eyes whipped her naked body, serpents of pain now trawling along her skin.

Still the pressure swelled, until she knew that if she moved, if she so much as twitched, she'd explode.  Her eyes no longer saw the hall; her ears no longer heard
music
: instead, they fed barbed ropes of sound to the furious thing inside that fought to climb out of her.  Or perhaps
into
her.

Behind the music dragged a chaotic, burning landscape.  A landscape where a man waited, chains and scalpels in his hands, and a smile that touched his lips but never his eyes.

The Fury inside tore her away in pieces, feeding on them.  Confusion swelled, knowledge draining from her as she tried to resist.  Thoughts twisted in her grasp, changing, transforming into screams of defiance.  Screams that she wasn't real, that
it
was real, that it was a Huntress, that it would Kill-

At that moment on the stage below, the soprano's arms went wide, emptying her lungs as she strained for the note-

And Leeth
erupted
, leaping to her feet.  With a scream of animal rage she
killed
Jennifer, jerking cries from the throats of those nearby.  Some, jumped from their seats.

The man beside her, frozen – staring at her as if in wait – flinched back at the primal howl she roared in defiance at him, challenging him.  Ready to kill again.

Around her, no one moved.  No one spoke.  On the stage, the performers stood paralyzed; the orchestra a still life of raised instruments, stopped mid-note.

For long seconds there was absolute silence.

Then, one by one, shock faded from people's expressions.  Anger welled in its place as they turned to face her, as she stood, panting heavily, her hands clenched like claws.