26 MASKS






Kade was awake when she went back to the room. He opened his eyes as she entered. He felt much more settled than he had a few hours ago. He smiled at her.


Shit, Sam thought to herself.


"How're you feeling?" she asked.


Kade came up to a sitting position as he answered. "A lot better. Sorry about that freak out earlier. And thank you. You saved my life tonight."


"Just doing my job, Kade," Sam replied.


"Those guys in the alley. They exploded?"


Sam nodded.


"They had explosives in them? Why would anyone agree to that?"


Sam answered slowly. "They might not have known they were wired to blow. Their masters could have implanted the charges without their knowledge."


She felt Kade absorb that.


Are there things in me I don't know about? Sam wondered.


She dismissed the thought. It wasn't worthy of her.


Kade nodded thoughtfully. "Tough call with Becker?" he asked.


It took her by surprise. Had she been broadcasting that much?


Had he heard when Lee came in to alert her to the call? Sam shrugged, tried to make it casual.


She said, "Just going over the situation. Figuring out who was behind that attack, and how to stop it from happening again."


"Any luck?"


Sam narrowed her eyes. "Tell me about the Nexus contact between you and Ananda at the reception last night."


She saw the flicker of it across his face for a moment before Kade caught himself. She felt it in the way his thoughts hardened as he got them under control.


"What do you mean?" he said. "There wasn't any Nexus contact between us. We just bumped into each other in line."


He was lying. She was sure of it. What did I really expect?


In a way, she was relieved. His clumsy lie let her put him more squarely in the category of "asset", where she needed him to be. And in lying, he'd confirmed the suspicion she'd had. Ananda did have Nexus rattling around in his brain.


"Kade, don't play dumb with me."


Kade shrugged. "I was in line, and he got in line behind me. We exchanged a few words. That was it. No Nexus, nothin'."


Sam shook her head. "Fine, if that's the way you want to play it. I also know you and Shu communicated via Nexus, and you hid it from me. You're walking the edge right now. Your deal is contingent on your full cooperation. Got it?"


Kade shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I showed you what happened. My Nexus transmissions were totally shut down, and I didn't feel a peep out of her. I got the invite to Shanghai. Mission accomplished, right?"


Sam stared at him. There was no sign he was lying. No twitch, no looking away. Even so, the phone had picked up the Nexus traffic. Was it possible that it had all come from Shu? For what purpose?


"Show me again," she said, "and show me your interaction with Ananda."



Kade nodded. "OK." The serenity package kept him calm and cool.


He stepped into the mask of false memories Shu had created for him. He widened the connection to Sam, watched as she roved through his mind. He weighed the texture of the alternate memories. They were a script more than anything else. A story. Shu had filled in the details beneath them, but the mind did that so well on its own. Memories were narratives. They were stories. If he could master the right narrative, put it on like a mask, he could fool anyone.


Could he craft a convincing narrative for that brief moment of contact with Ananda? He tried to imagine it, tried to tell himself the story of how they'd bumped into each other, tried to make it real, tried to make it feel like the mask Shu had created in his mind.


Sam moved systematically, painstakingly through his memories of dinner with Shu. She replayed some moments again and again. She found nothing. The false memories held.


"Show me when you bumped into Ananda."


Kade sank into the alternate script, became a different Kade, told the story of that brief conversation in the drink line. A felt presence. Body heat, the sound of a breath, a few words exchanged.


Sam finished. She held his eyes with hers, then shook her head. Disappointment issued from her. Bitterness.


"Kade, I don't know how, but I know you're lying to me. I'm just going to tell you one more time. If you don't cooperate fully, you'll go to jail, dozens of your friends will go jail. Some of you won't ever come out."


Distaste issued from her as she spoke. She didn't like this, Kade could sense. She wanted to do field ops, not blackmail people. He wondered if she knew how much of herself she gave away to him.


"I'm telling the truth. I've got no reason to lie to you. I want to get this over with and get on with my life." He let frustration and anger creep into his voice, into the emotions that seeped into Sam's brain from his.


I could just make her believe me, he realized. I could use one of the back doors… I could go into her mind and make her believe.


No. He would not do that. Not unless he had no other option. He had to draw a line.


Sam sighed. "Fine, have it your way. Don't say I didn't warn you when the shit hits the fan."


She shook her head again. She was angry at herself for something. Something involving him. "Now, let's talk about today. We need to get back to the hotel. Your story is…"


"Wait, wait, wait a minute," Kade interjected.


"What?"


"This is over, right? I did what you asked. I've got the invite to Shanghai. She seems to want me for the postdoc position. How about I go home now?"


Sam shook her head. "No. The mission's not done." She was hardening herself. She didn't like this either. She was steeling herself to tell him things she didn't agree with.


"Sam… Come on. We were just attacked. You said yourself that they were trying to kidnap me. Someone knows something is fishy. And you killed those guys. They're going to figure out you're more than just a student. What's going to stop them from coming back? Is your mission going to be better off if I'm gone? Or if I'm dead?"


Sam felt it, he saw. And his arguments hit home. They resonated with her.


"It's not an option, Kade. The decision is made. We're staying. We can't do anything that will make Shu suspicious, and you leaving early would be suspicious." Kade felt a hollowness in her as she spoke. A bitterness at hearing the words emerge from her own mouth. A grim resolve to do her job.


"Look, it wouldn't be that hard. We can say I came down with the flu. I'll mail Shu, reconfirm the visit to Shanghai."


"No." Resolve came out on top. "I told you. The decision is made. We'll have tighter security. You won't be in danger. But we are staying and completing this mission."


Kade said nothing for a moment, just stared at her. Then, "I'm not going to help you blackmail those kids. I'm not going to help you fuck them over the way you did me. You're not going to use them to get at someone else."


"Then Rangan and Ilya will go to jail. You'll go to jail. More than a hundred of your friends who were at that party will go to jail. They'll lose jobs. They'll lose scholarships. They'll be expelled from schools."


Self-loathing came off of her as she spoke. The resolve was still greater.


"And all of it will be on your head, Mr Lane. All of it."


Cold anger flooded through Kade. How could he have started to trust this woman? It didn't matter that she hated what she was doing. She was doing it. She was one of them.


"Fuck you, Cataranes." He said it coldly, distinctly, so she'd know he meant it.


Sam came to her feet. Her own anger was rising. "No, fuck you, Kade."


She walked out of the room, called over her shoulder. "And get on your feet. We're leaving in ten minutes."


Загрузка...