Reach For the Spy (24 page)

“Aydan, you’re kidding
me. You’re not making a play for that fine specimen of a man?”

I shrugged. “That would
be cheesy. He’s got a girlfriend.”

“Well...” She looked
unconvinced. “Maybe they’re not serious.”

I patted her shoulder.
“And maybe they are. I’m not about to ask. See you.”

I went out the door
with a confident stride, but my mind was elsewhere. I hadn’t really
thought about it before, but now I wondered what Kane did for
female companionship. I knew he’d been divorced years ago, and he’d
never mentioned a girlfriend. But I sure as hell didn’t get the
impression he suffered from a low sex drive.

Then again, he was a
spy. He could probably keep multiple girlfriends and never let them
find out about one another. And a guy like him could have his pick
of women.

I realized I’d trailed
to a halt on the sidewalk, and I scoped out the street casually.
After his insistence about keeping me guarded, I found it hard to
believe Kane would have just vanished.

Sure enough, his
Expedition was parked a half-block down the street, just out of the
direct sight line of anybody inside the sex shop. I strolled toward
it, noticing Spider’s custom-painted lime green Smart car parked
behind it.

With a glance up and
down the street to make sure nobody was watching me, I slid into
the passenger seat. Kane punched a speed dial button on his phone
and spoke cryptically. “Pull out. Meet us at Sirius.”

At my raised eyebrow,
he disconnected and explained, “Lola was a little too eager to put
us together as a couple, so I thought it would be better if we left
separately. I took surveillance of the front entrance. Webb was
watching the back.”

“Was that a good idea?
Seems to me the last time you put Spider at the back door of a
shop, somebody ploughed into him and nearly ruptured his
spleen.”

Kane grinned. “You
weren’t even close to his spleen. And anyway, he volunteered.
Eagerly. That little brunette might have had something to do with
it.”

“Ooh.” I bounced my
eyebrows. “The kid who blushes if anyone even utters the word
‘sex’, and the owner of a sex shop. Sounds like a match made in
heaven.”

“For one of them,
anyway,” Kane commented with a wicked grin.

I laughed. “Not to be
inappropriate here, but I’m sure Spider would prove to be a quick
study if properly motivated.”

Kane shook his head.
“I’m not even going to go there.” He pulled out and steered the
truck back toward Sirius Dynamics.

Inside the building,
Kane waved me toward the glass doors. “You go on up. I’ll be there
in a few minutes.”

I swiped my fob past
the prox pad and let myself into the office area with a buoyant
sense of relief. In my office, I resisted the urge to do a quick
happy-dance. Probably Stemp had surveillance there, too. Despite
evidence to the contrary, I did actually attempt to preserve my
dignity at times.

Sinking onto the couch,
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. A few minutes later
Kane’s tap on the open door made me start.

He frowned. “Webb’s not
here yet?”

“Haven’t seen him.”

“Hm.” He came in and
handed me the tiny box containing the network key. “Keep this
concealed at all times. There are only a couple of people here who
have a high enough security clearance to know about it. Webb or I
will bring it up for you every day and take it back down again when
you’re finished.”

I gazed up at him. “Did
I say thank you for this?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Again. I
can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

He smiled. “I have an
inkling.”

Spider rushed through
the door, his cheeks pink. “Sorry I’m late. I got... um... tied
up.”

I bit my tongue. It
didn’t stop me.

“Kinky,” I teased.

He blushed scarlet.
“Um. I brought my laptop so I can monitor your session.” He bustled
over to the desk and busied himself setting up the computer, his
cheeks still flaming. Kane’s lips twitched, and I hid a smile of my
own.

“Okay, I’m ready,”
Spider said a few minutes later, his eyes still riveted to his
screen in an almost-convincing display of concentration.

“All right.” I grinned.
“Let’s see what my little toy has given us to play with.”

I bowed my head and
stepped confidently into the clean white void. Kane popped into
existence beside me just as I took a deep, satisfied virtual
breath.

He smiled.
“Better?”

“You have no idea.”

I folded sim-space
effortlessly and stepped into the file room. A neat stack of files
waited for me in the location I’d designated for my listening
device, and I grinned as I picked up the top one. “Come to
Mommy.”

A thought struck me as
I flipped it open. “Hey, John, can you read this?” I stuck the file
under his nose.

He frowned down at it
for a moment. “No.”

“Mmm. Too bad.” I
heaved a sigh. “I’m going to look through these files first, and
then I have an idea I’d like to try. It would be great if I could
build my little device so it decrypted the files as they came
in.”

Spider spoke up from
the external network connection. “Aydan, if you could do that, it
would be incredibly valuable.”

“Well, I’ll give it a
try as soon as I’m through these files, then.” I plopped down at
the virtual desk and started translating.

After the first
half-dozen or so I took a break, rubbing the back of my neck as I
glanced over at Kane’s intent expression.

“What?” I asked.

“This is a gold mine,”
he replied, an edge of excitement in his voice.

I realized that while
I’d been absorbed in my decryption, he’d been working through
another network interface. His face held the predatory focus I’d
seen on a few other occasions, the age-old expression of a hunter
stalking his prey.

I grinned and dove back
into the pile of documents.

A blip in the sim and a
small stab of pain behind my eyes made me look up at last. “What,
Spider?”

“I said, it’s five
o’clock. Are you ready for a break?”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t
hear you. Did you?” I turned to Kane.

“What?” He glanced up,
obviously interrupted in the middle of a thought.

I chuckled. “That’ll be
a ‘no’, then. Spider says it’s time for a break.”

“Oh.” His gaze was
still far away. “I just need a minute here...” His voice trailed
off as he concentrated on his virtual terminal.

“We’ll be out in a few
minutes, Spider,” I said. “Signal me again if it goes over half an
hour, okay?”

“Okay.”

I picked up the next
file and began decrypting. Panic drove through me, and I scanned
wildly for the date/time stamp.

“SHIT!” I bellowed, and
sprang invisibly into the data stream.

I rocketed down the
virtual tunnel, a wild roller-coaster ride that careened through
IPs and blasted through firewalls while I held onto invisibility
with all my concentration. If I betrayed my presence now...

I screeched to a halt
outside the last firewall, my attenuated consciousness snapping
back into me like a rubber band. I knew my virtual body didn’t even
need a heart, but the drumming in my ears hammered on unabated
while I panted.

Now came the tricky
part. I seeped through the firewall, swift but stealthy. Burrowing
into the heart of the enemy network, I sniffed undetectably through
data packets as I made for my goal.

At last I identified
the file I sought. Dread suffused me as I wrapped my feelers around
it. Too afraid to hope, I narrowed my concentration to
infinitesimal detail, feeling and smelling and tasting and
sensing.

I gulped overwhelming
relief. Still intact. Untouched.

I destroyed it without
a trace.

How many others were
there? Slithering into the network services, I checked their sync
routines. Six other sites. This was going to take some time.

Time that might have
already run out for me.

A half-formed prayer on
my virtual lips, I chose a tunnel at random and propelled myself
down it.

If I didn’t make a
clean sweep, I’d be doomed. Dead woman walking.

I found no evidence of
the file at the first sync site. That was the good news. The bad
news was that I found another web of connections. I’d have to
explore them, too, just to be sure. But first I needed to check the
main sites. Snapping back to the original site, I took the next
tunnel.

An eternity later, I
crept along the last tiny strand of connection. I had found and
eradicated two other copies of the file in other connections,
neither of which appeared to have been viewed. So far my luck was
holding.

Nothing there. Thank
God.

I let the connection
end, leaving me floating in a limbo of unidentifiable tunnels. For
a few seconds, I let my exhausted consciousness drift, washed along
by streams of data. Then I sighed and turned for home.

Which was... where,
exactly?

The fear that had
driven me forward swelled into a shock of panic. I’d stretched
myself so far along so many convoluted routes, I couldn’t feel
anything anchoring me anymore.

For the first time, I
stopped to wonder what would happen if one of the connections I’d
used was severed. Would I float forever, unable to coalesce back
into myself?

Twisting wildly, I
searched for anything that felt like me, but I’d spread myself so
thinly I could only find traces here and there. I clamped down on
terror and calmed my mind as best I could.

Just go one step at a
time. Like a droplet of water gathering raindrops. I held the image
and seeped backward with sluggish desperation.

I lost all sense of
time while I slowly gathered myself. Wending my way through
infinite corridors, I held panic at bay. Collect one drop at a
time.

At last I recognized
the server where I’d originally started. I tried to marshal my
consciousness into the rubber-band form I’d used earlier, but I
couldn’t manage it. All I could do was dribble formlessly back down
the data tunnel toward Sirius Dynamics.

With the last of my
sentient thought, I hoped Kane had brought his bucket.

He was going to need
it.

I trickled into the
corner of the familiar virtual file room and lay in a stagnant
puddle. With no eyes to see and no ears to hear, I sensed Kane
pacing the room.

“Aydan!” His voice was
hoarse, and I wondered how long he’d been calling.

I tried to form words.
Nothing happened.

One of his large shoes
splashed through me, and I recoiled, ripples running through me.
“Ow!”

“Aydan?” His voice
sounded closer as he fell to his knees beside me. “Is… that you?”
he asked hesitantly.

I could see him now,
his image undulating as if I was looking up from below the surface
of water. He reached out a careful hand.

His touch was
startlingly personal, as if he’d touched my entire body all at
once. I let out an involuntary gasp and tried to divert my mind
from sudden prurient curiosity about what it would be like to have
sex inside the sim.

Fortunately, my
concentration was too weakened to give form to that thought, but it
provided enough focus to let me form a word.

“Help.”

“Don’t worry,” Kane
reassured me. “We’ll get you out.”

Too exhausted to deal
with the logistics, I lay in my torpid puddle. He had said he’d
rescue me. He’d get me out somehow.

“Aydan.”

I made an attempt to
rouse myself and managed the faintest of whispers. “I’m here.”

“Can you take my
hand?”

He laid his palm on my
surface again. His heat radiated, and the intimacy of the touch
sent ripples racing through me.

Goddamn. If I managed
to create any corporeal form at all, it wouldn’t be my hand he was
holding. Wouldn’t that make Spider blush.

I concentrated on the
sensation of his hand in mine. What did it feel like to hold his
hand? Big, broad, hard palm. Strong fingers.

“Good, keep going,” he
encouraged. “I’m going to help you get up now.”

I felt the pressure of
his hand as he gently pulled upward, but I couldn’t sustain my
grip. I trickled through his fingers and back onto the floor.

“Dammit!”

“Sorry,” I whispered
mouthlessly.

“It’s okay. All right,
we’ll do this the hard way.” The floor tilted and rolled crazily as
he sluiced me into a bucket.

“Aaaah! Goddammit!” I
clasped my pounding head in both hands, then quickly reconsidered
and clapped one hand over my eyes to keep them from exploding. I
rocked and swore until I was certain I could open my eyes without
having them rupture.

“Jesus
Christ
!”
My eyeballs weren’t the only thing in danger of rupturing. I
tottered to my feet as soon as I could see. “Gotta go. Back in a
flash.”

I caught a glimpse of
two worried faces as I staggered rapidly from the office and made a
beeline for the ladies’ room. I clenched my teeth and whimpered as
I scuttled into one of the stalls, knees locked together.

I didn’t even dare
think about how long it had been since I’d finished that beer at
lunch time. I studiously avoided looking at my watch until the
pressure dissipated enough that I wasn’t actually in pain. Finally
I breathed a deep sigh and slumped against the toilet paper holder,
shaking. God, another couple of minutes in the sim, and I wouldn’t
have made it.

There was a tap at the
door, and Kane’s voice floated in from the corridor outside.
“Aydan? Are you all right?”

“Fine. I’ll be out in a
minute.”

I dragged myself to my
feet and propped my quivering body against the counter while I
washed my hands. When I wobbled out the door, Kane handed me a
bottle of orange juice. I promptly spilled it down my chin when my
trembling hands made me miss my mouth.