The Operator
Page 15

Michael jiggled his foot impatiently. He knew the feeling, but he didn’t like that she might share it with him, that she might understand. It was his feeling, not hers. “A perfect pain in the ass,” he muttered.
Jerked back to the present, Bill curled his lip. Motions rough, he took another swallow from the bottle. “She’s perfect,” he said again. “And if she’d just accelerate herself and realize I’ve turned her into a goddess, she’d come home.”
She has the accelerator on her? Michael froze at the sudden realization. That little nugget of information hadn’t reached him. “She has it?” he said as Bill set the bottle down with a sharp click. “Has she used it?”
“I don’t know.”
It was terse and distracted, and Michael settled himself deeper into the cushions, not liking the uncertainty.
“Stay away from her.” Bill’s expression was empty, and for the first time, Michael couldn’t read what was going on behind his eyes. “She’ll kill you if she feels threatened. I’ll accelerate you myself when we know it’s safe. You understand me? You’re all I have left, Michael, and I’m not going to risk you. Not on this. Let Peri bear the danger.”
Kill him? Doubtful, but he’d seen the med wing where they kept the people they’d tried the accelerator on, retired drafters or those with the ability to draft but too far gone to be reintroduced to society. It was deathly silent and ugly. “I hear you,” he said, and Bill moved his bulk from behind the desk, the grace of it reminding Michael that Bill could still break men’s heads like boards. His past wasn’t as pretty as he pretended, and if he kept pushing, he’d remind Michael of that.
“Do you?” Bill leaned over Michael, almost pinning him to the chair.
Michael looked up, pushing the older man out of his space with a single finger. “I just said I heard you. Why am I here? I’ve already been debriefed.”
Bill’s lips twitched at the hesitant knock at the door, pushing himself up and away from Michael. “Come!” he shouted, then turned back to Michael. “I’m glad we have this understanding,” he threatened.
I understand I’m the only drafter you got left, old man, and that you gave the accelerator to an AWOL. Michael looked at the door as it opened, but it was only Jack, and he settled back, dismissing him. The blond man had once been Opti’s star anchor, but he was little more than an accessory now, skilled but useless without a drafter to glom onto. “If you think I’m taking Jack as my new anchor, you’re sorely mistaken,” Michael intoned, reaching for his phone as a message came in. It was that woman, telling him to get bent, and he smiled as he tucked his phone away. Worth a shot.
“Hey, hi,” Jack said, scanning the room before taking the chair beside Michael’s, scooting it an inch or two away before settling down. “The feeling is mutual, Bill. There’s no way in hell I’m going to pair up with Michael.”
“Good.” Bill poured a second shot glass and pushed it across the desk to Jack. “That’s not why I called you in.”
“Then why?” Michael asked, his mind only half on the conversation. Bill gave the accelerator to Reed? Let her walk away with it? No, this crap about wanting her back as a test subject was just that.
“Because Jack knows what Peri might do next and what resources she might have that I don’t know about.” Bill sipped his scotch. “Jack was her anchor for three years. He ingrained most of her hangups, knows her better than I do. If anyone can second-guess her, it’s him, and we need to keep tabs on her as this runs its course.”
Michael propped his ankle on a knee, using the pain from the knife jab to center himself. “Why am I here, then?”
“You’re here because you, Michael, are not my best despite your ego-ridden belief, and you need to better yourself. She brought you down with about six skip-hops. When we’re done here, Jack will take you down to a training floor and walk you through it. Listen and learn.”
“Fuck you, old man.” Michael glowered at them, putting his foot back on the floor. Bill wasn’t trying to bring her in. He was seducing her back, toying with her, giving her little bread crumbs so when she did return, she’d think it was her idea. Bill had no intention of accelerating him. And he wouldn’t until she was dead and he had no choice.
Oblivious to his thoughts, Bill chuckled when Jack leaned to take a shot glass and clink it with Bill’s. “So . . . do you think she’ll accelerate herself?” Bill asked, sitting back against his desk to make the wood creak. “She’s got a week’s supply of Evocane with her.”
Jack sipped the old scotch, clearly appreciating it. “Self-administer? Not a chance,” he said, cradling the glass to his middle as if it was his soul. “The woman is scared to remember, scared to forget. And she doesn’t trust you.”
Bill scrubbed a hand across his clean-shaven face, his focus distant. “But she will. Once she calms down, has a good think, and realizes what I’ve given her, she’ll come in.”
Michael unrolled his phone and checked his news feed. Not if I find her first.
“Maybe, but you shouldn’t have let her take an entire week of Evocane,” Jack said.
“You gave it to her, or did she take it?” Michael asked, satisfied when Bill pointed his shot glass at him to be quiet. If I kill her outright, Bill will be so pissed he’ll cut me loose. He’d threatened to do it before when Michael had “accidentally” put a student in a coma during finals. The bastard had been ruining the curve. But that didn’t mean Peri wasn’t going to die.
“You don’t think she’s going to dose herself once she feels safe?” Bill asked Jack.
Jack shifted uneasily. “She’s going to want someone with her to put a clamp on her conditioning against being alone. I’m guessing she’ll try for Silas.”
“Who?” Michael said, not liking that they were for all intents ignoring him.
“Dr. Silas Denier,” Bill echoed, and Michael recalled the bear of a man who had won the genetic lottery to have brains and brawn in equal, substantial measure. He was the one responsible for developing the slick suits they had all trained in, and Michael’s lip twitched, remembering the cramping paralysis that simulated a gunshot.