Until It's You (8 page)

"Did Roy look anxious when you saw him?"

Landon hesitated, then shook his head. “Couldn’t say, why?”

“Just seems odd for one of these muscle types to be looking to buy a car or something in the middle of the day when things are as crazy as they are.”

“You might be right.”

She went to her tablet and made some quick notes. She could organize them later.

“It could be a sign they’re cracking up,” she said, looking back up into the dark wells of his eyes. “They’ve been doing so much collateral damage at this point that they ought to be.”

“So what? You think we should draw them out until they capitulate?”

She shook her head. “I think we should be on the lookout for mistakes like the ones we’ve seen and be ready for them. In case we have a chance to grab onto a loose thread and pull.”

He motioned to the tablet on the table and sat down. “Is that what you’ve been working on? Looking for a thread to pull?”

He motioned toward the couch, as if to sit down. She moved over to let him. His sudden nearness threw her off for a moment, but she regained her equilibrium with effort. She had to.

Ignoring her suddenly warm cheeks, she leaned forward and took the tablet in her hands. The screen flashed on.

“This is a doc I create whenever I am on a new case. Gives me a systematic way to look at all the players, begin laying the groundwork for seeing connections.”

He nodded, his full attention on her. “And you were able to complete it already?”

“The base of it, anyway. There are always additions. It’s a little hard to find information on your assistant. Ms. Bruman. What does she do for you, exactly?”

Landon straightened up in his seat. His eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment as he stared ahead, seemingly at nothing.

Kristina waited.

“Ms. Bruman has been with me since the company started,” Landon said. “She was a friend of Oliver’s wife. She’d just lost her husband unexpectedly and needed to go back to work.”

“I see.”

“As for what she does, it’s kind of hard to put a limit on it. Suffice to say she is responsible for a large part of administration at the company. Her eye for efficiency and professionalism is incredible.”

“Is she cleared by DNA to your apartment like I was?”

Landon shook his head. “No. I made sure to look at the list of people cleared for that after the fruit basket arrived.”

“Who was on the list?”

“You’re looking at him.”

"That's it? No cleaners or anything?"

"Cleaners get temp access. Nobody else was cleared at the time the fruit basket came in."

Kristina nodded, then breathed deeply. So whoever had done this was an adept hacker, too.

“Okay," she said with a deep breath. "At this point, I think we need to figure out next steps.”

Landon nodded but said nothing. She felt acutely at that moment that he was testing her. This was her chance to take the reins. She hesitated, putting together a plan on the fly. It had to project confidence to Landon. Give him a reason to believe he’d been right to trust her when he’d drafted that protocol.

“Whoever’s after you isn’t exactly laying low,” she said, thinking out loud. “Like I said before, they’re desperate. And that means they’re prone to mistakes. They’ve probably already made one by not catching me at the beach.”

“I’ll agree with that.”

“They might make another. We need to try to force them into a situation where that happens and be ready to latch on.”

“How?”

She brushed her hair out of her eyes. It was still slightly damp. “To start with, I can go talk to the people on our list. Fordelli might be a challenge, but everyone else I’ve already met. I talk to them and see if I can throw them off. Then we can run a Recall when I’m done if we want to do more analysis.”

Landon looked at her skeptically. “Sounds dangerous for you. What’s my role?”

Kristina grimaced. Now was not the time for macho shit. “Get anything you can get set up as far as pharms go, for starters. Fill in details, figure out ways to test people, that kind of thing. I’m kind of worried about exposing you too much around them because...you know...that’s what they want.”

Landon’s jaw tensed, but he nodded. “That'll work for now. There’s also the matter of your brother, of course.”

A pit formed in Kristina’s stomach. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten, but she had managed to keep it out of mind while she was working. She hated the near-helpless feeling it gave her to wonder whether he was okay. If he wasn't...it didn't even bear thinking about. He had to be alright.

“I’ll find him,” she said. “Whoever is responsible for this other stuff is responsible for him. I’ll find him."

It had taken fifteen minutes via bus to get to the Western Brown Line station. The deep blue sky towered over her as she waited for the train. Contrails from the direction of O’Hare slowly faded into wisps and then nothing. The horizon was blocked by a series of buildings that held still as they ever did.

She shook her head and looked down at her comm. It had been half an hour since she had left Landon at the apartment and headed out for her office building. She still didn't have a concrete plan. Just the idea that she needed to talk to people. She would figure it out on the way down.

A thought occurred to her. Pressing her lips together, she tapped out a quick message to Anna.

It’s K. Can you meet me outside building in 30 min? Front entrance.

She hit send. If Anna wasn’t available, it wasn’t the end of the world. There was still the pass from her bag. The problem was using it would expose her slightly if someone was waiting to be alerted by the security system. Not super likely, but technically possible if someone was connected enough. Which, given what had happened on the news stream this morning, seemed like an option to entertain. Definitely possible enough that it didn’t hurt to see if she could get herself checked in as a guest.

Her comm buzzed in her pocket. Anna had responded.

OMG WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?

Kristina’s heart fell. Of course Anna would be freaked out by her silence since yesterday. She should have given her a call like she'd given Kevin. At least this morning, after she'd found out Landon had talked to his assistant. Biting the inside of her lower lip, she tapped out a quick reply.

Sorry. Will explain. But I’m fine. Can you do it?

Another few seconds.

Ok. Make it 40. This better be good.

Kristina smiled. She was looking forward to seeing Anna. It had only been yesterday that she’d seen her, but it felt like forever with everything that had happened. The whole world felt like a different life.

Thanks. Stand at front entrance.

She put her comm back into her blazer pocket and craned her neck, looking for the train. It was on its way, its fluorescent blue-white headlight shining even with the sun out at the front of its crystal bubble glass frame.

People on the platform began to shuffle forward, some walking away from the middle in an attempt to get to board one of the train cars at the end, which were usually less crowded. Though, at this time of day and this far north on the line, that really shouldn’t be a problem.

Something, someone, pulled on the edge of her vision, pinching at the edge between forefinger and thumb. She gasped.

Closed her eyes and brought her hand to her face. What the hell was going on? Was this the pharm again?

The train approached. She felt it more than heard it until it whooshed past just a foot in front of her face. She opened her eyes and saw a blur of ads on the windows, framed by the glare from the train's semi-transparent exterior.

Finally, it came to a stop and the doors opened. There were men on the platform and even in the window of the train. Blonde hair, dark hair, stubble, clean-shaven, round heads, square heads, dark skin, light skin—anything she could have asked about playing Guess Who as a child, it was there.

They were not off-clones of Landon. The world had snapped back into place. At least part of the pharm had worn off.

She was free. Just as she’d kind of begun to get used to it, she was free.

She stepped into the train and sat down. The doors closed. She stared straight ahead, willing herself not to look around at the different faces. Nausea overcame her and she had to close her eyes.

The train rolled into motion, She put her head back against the glass and opened her eyes, slowly.

An old woman with short, wiry gray hair and black-framed glasses was studying her. Her lively green eyes wrinkled at the corners.

“Are you alright, dear?” the woman asked.

Her voice was stronger than Kristina would have expected. So much that she wasn't sure if she might be imagining it. 

Kristina forced herself to smile. “I’m okay, sorry. Just a little dizzy this morning. Makes me nauseous. Must be something I caught in the air.”

The old woman's expression didn’t change as she nodded sagely. “That happens a lot these days.”

***

Twice she feared she would be unable to fight down the urge to vomit on the train, but she prevailed. After thirty minutes of public commuting hell, Kristina got off and walked through the glass and steel canyons of downtown. Cars, buses, and people glided by. If they were making any noise at all, she didn't notice. With every step, she fought the urge to sit down and wait for the nausea to pass. This thing wasn't passing on its own.

No. She needed a Walgreens. If she didn't get an anti-nausea pharm in her system fast, there was going to be a scene. Not exactly ideal to be puking your guts out onto the sidewalk when you were trying to be blend into a crowd.

Thankfully, the shining red beacon of Chicago's favorite pharmacist shone down on her after just a block and a half. She stepped through the bubble glass doors and made straight for the pharm counter. An ELIGO machine opened up. She went to it and sifted quickly through the menus to get to NausEase. After adding it to her cart, she hit the button to checkout. Payment options appeared on the screen.

The cash option was grayed out.

Fighting panic—and the gross feeling in her stomach—she looked for an associate to help her. A huge man with a shaved head caught her eye. He wore the Walgreen's employee uniform of powder-blue button down and navy tie. She put her hand up to signal to him and he came over.

"It won't let me pay with cash," she said.

He looked at the machine, then back at her, starting at her feet and working his way up. His eyes narrowed. "Why do you need to pay with cash?"

She shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"Well, it's obviously causing an issue for you. So yes, it matters. You in some kind of trouble?"

Bile rose up in her chest. "Listen, I might throw up at any minute, and that could be messy." She squared up to him, even if he was almost a foot taller than her. "Can you check me out or not?"

He sighed. Stepped in front of her rudely, muttering under his breath as he did something on the screen. A printout dispensed from the bottom tray. He took it and walked wordlessly to the pharmacy counter. Kristina followed, fuming. He disappeared behind the counter and came out with a clean black box with
NAUSEASE
written on the front.

"Twenty-two eighty-seven," he said gruffly. Kristina slid twenty-five dollars across the table.

He took the money and counted out change, then slid it back across the counter. She took it, then reached for her purchase

His hand went on top. "You people need to cut this out," he said quietly.

"What?"

"This anti-tracking, pay-with-cash stuff. You Wipers had your way we wouldn't even have comms on the web."

She blinked. So he was a Data fanatic. Thought that the world's problems could be solved by enough data and people who opted out of data collection were betraying mankind. News streams had covered them a lot lately, though that could be planted by the companies who wanted to collect people’s data. Never could be sure why anything in particular was covered anymore.

She looked around to see if they were making a scene. The store was fairly empty at the moment, but that would change soon. It always did at a place like this.

"I don't want to talk about this," she said. "Give me my purchase or I'll scream. Your manager won't like that."

"Cretin," he muttered, but he took his hand off. Kristina took her purchase and left the store.

As soon as she was back out on the street, she took the small black cube out from its box, put the opening between her lips, and inhaled. The box-cooled chemical vapor of the pharm hissed between her teeth and into her lungs. 

Instantly, her shoulders relaxed with the brief burst of anti-anxiety pharms flowing through her. With each passing second, the nausea receded, until she was standing there and feeling almost back to normal. She exhaled and a light vapor exited her lungs, barely perceptible.

Relieved, she continued toward the Dunn-Brantley building, half-carried by the crowd and half-carving her own path. The associate's words rang in her ears as she walked.

You lot had your way we wouldn't even have comms on the web.

Pretty short-sighted, but something about those words grated on her, and she couldn't quite find the cubby in her mind for why that might be. Like a misshapen block, the phrase hung there as she walked to the Dunn-Brantley building, bouncing awkwardly in her mind. She hated that.

Even without the nausea, it was somehow strange to see all the different faces as she walked down the sidewalk. As if she was a tourist and everyone was looking at her as something foreign to the system they were all seamlessly part of. Like she was a virus ready to be attacked by the immune system of normalcy at any moment.

She continued like that for a few minutes until she arrived at the building’s front entrance. A brief scan of the area showed Anna wasn’t there yet, so she made another loop around the block, her eyes peeled for anyone that looked remotely suspicious. Waiting cars, people standing idly on a street corner, anything.

Nothing.

By the time she made it around the block again, Anna was waiting at the entrance, looking around for her.

After a quick check around, she walked up to Anna. Anna continued to look around dimly, seemingly oblivious that her friend was right next to her. That was good.

She tapped Anna on the gray, padless shoulder of her blazer. “Walk with me,” she said.

Anna turned sharply, her eyes wide. Her mouth fell open when she saw Kristina, but Kristina shook her head and Anna clamped her mouth shut quickly. Kristina leading the way, they walked down the steps and away from the building.

Once they had gotten to the bottom of the stairs, she turned to her friend. “Like my new look?”

Anna looked over her shoulder and then wrapped her fingers around Kristina’s upper arm and pulled her close. “What happened? I tried calling last night but it went to message.”

"I'm sorry," Kristina said quickly. "Listen, I need to talk to you. There’s been a lot of stuff going on.”

“Did you find him?”

It was Kristina’s turn to look over her shoulder. “Can we go to your office?”

“Kristina, tell me what’s going on.”

“I will. Can we go to your office?”

Anna checked her watch. Flicked a screen over, then back. “I have about thirty minutes. Should that be enough?”

“I think so.”

They turned heel and walked back, the only sound between them the tapping of Anna’s shoes on the sidewalk. Kristina wore the same flats she'd had the previous day. Her head spun as they walked. She needed to make sure she had everything straight for Anna.

After Kristina signed in as a guest—Rachel Williams—they took the elevator up to Anna’s floor. From there they walked through the bright, sterile hallways, and into Anna's office.

The office was like Anna herself. The walls had several framed, colorful prints of the chakras and other eastern religion images.

The Buddha on a lotus flower. Ganesha the pink elephant god, which Kristina only knew because Anna had gotten very upset with her after she'd asked about "the elephant god thing." An abstract image in blue and orange which Anna had told her was a mandala.

Anna had gotten heavily into yoga and eastern spirituality in the last few years, even though the rest of her personality didn't always suggest it. Clients sometimes gave the prints a second look, but Anna claimed nobody had ever said anything, unless it was a positive talk about how much yoga had changed their life. Anna could only agree.

Her desk was sleek glass with a wave in the front, facing the client. Papers covered the surface, but each one seemed to belong to its own stack. There was just room for her tablet and keyboard.

Kristina took the guest seat in front of the desk. Anna walked around and took her normal chair.

“Okay,” Anna said, once she’d taken her seat. “What the hell is going on with you?”

Kristina grimaced. "I'm sorry," she said again.

Anna nodded to indicate she'd heard, but said nothing.

Kristina took a deep breath and related the story of what had happened once she'd left the office the previous day, all the way up to when Landon had arrived right on time at the beach.

“Tatum?”

“Right. So Landon got me in the car, we drove off and ended up in this safe house he set up a while ago. I think around the same time as he drafted that wonky protocol that had me searching for him in the first place.”

“And you guys have been holed up ever since?”

“I mean, we’ve been busy, but—"

Anna narrowed her eyes. “Busy?"

"With everything."

"Okay . . ."

“It’s not important right now,” Kristina snapped. “I got a call from Kevin last night that his office had been shot up and he couldn’t get in touch with Tom.”