“Well, there were these guys.”
“Plural?”
“Just two.” She could feel the heat rising up to her throat and detested it. “It was an official investigation.”
“Were you naked?”
“Jesus, Roarke.”
“I believe it’s a perfectly reasonable question.”
“Maybe for a minute, okay? It was the program, and I had to test the program, and it wasn’t my fault these guys were all over me—and I aborted it before, well almost before . . .”
She stumbled to a guilty halt and saw with shock that he was grinning at her. “You think it’s funny?” Bunching her fist, she punched him in the shoulder. “I’ve been feeling like slime all day, and you think it’s funny.”
“Before what?” he asked, nipping the glass out of her hand before she could upend it over his head. He set it down beside his own. “You aborted the program almost before what, precisely?”
Her eyes went to slits. “They were great. I’m getting a copy of the program for my personal use. I won’t need you anymore, because I’ve got a couple of love slaves.”
“Wanna bet?” He pushed her back on the bed, wrestled with her, and managed to get her shirt over her head.
“Cut it out. I don’t want you. My love slaves keep me satisfied.” She flipped him, nearly had him pinned when his mouth closed over her breast, and his hand slid neatly down to cup her over the thin wool snug at her crotch.
Heat speared through her like lightning.
“Damn it.” She gasped out a breath. “I’m just pretending to enjoy this.”
“Okay.”
He tugged the slacks over her hips, then skimmed his fingertips over her. She was already wet, luring him in. His teeth closed over her nipple, tugged, just as he nudged her to peak.
It wasn’t a gentle pop this time. The orgasm came in one hard, fast wave that swamped her, drowned her, then tossed her helplessly over the next crest.
She moaned out his name. It was always his name. But when she reached for him, he cuffed her wrists, drew her arms over her head. “No.” His own breathing was uneven and thick as he stared down at her. “Just take it. Take me.”
He slipped inside her slowly, inch by inch, watching her eyes go blind and dark as he moved. Clamping down on the urge to ravish, to answer the sudden wild pistoning of her hips, he let her drive herself over the next edge.
And when she was limp and her breathing in tatters, he shifted to long, steady strokes. “Take more,” he murmured, swallowing her groans, holding her captive, hands, mouth, loins. “And more.”
Her system was overloaded, scrambled like her pulse. Her body was under siege, her sex so sensitized the wild pleasure was akin to pain. And still he moved slowly, lazily. “I can’t,” she managed, and her head whipsawed even as her hips arched for more. “It’s too much.”
“Let go, Eve.” He was holding onto control by his fingernails. “Once more.”
He didn’t let himself fall until she did.
Her head was still spinning when she managed to push herself up on her elbows. Amazingly, they were both still half dressed and on top of the spread. From the corner of the bed, Galahad sat watching her with feline disgust. Or maybe it was envy.
Roarke had rolled over on his back and had what could only be interpreted as a smug smile on his lips.
“I guess that flexed your testosterone.”
His smile spread wider. She jabbed a finger into his ribs.
“If that was to punish me, you missed the target.”
Now he opened his eyes and they were filled with warm amusement. “Darling Eve, did you really think I’d consider your little adventure some sort of virtual adultery?”
She pouted a little. However ridiculous it was, she was miffed that he wasn’t at all jealous. “Maybe.”
With a long sigh, he sat up, set his hands on her shoulders. “You can indulge in fantasy professionally or personally. I’m not your keeper.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Not in the least.” He gave her a friendly kiss, then caught her chin firmly in his hand. “Try it in the flesh, even once, and I’ll have to kill you.”
Her pupils widened, and foolishly her heart gave a pleased little leap. “Oh, well, that’s fair.”
“That’s fact,” he said simply. “Now that we have that straightened out, you should get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired anymore.” She tugged her slacks back over her hips and made him sigh again.
“I suppose that means you want to work.”
“If I could use your system, just for a couple of hours, I could get a jump on my legwork tomorrow.”
Resigned, he pulled on his own slacks. “Let’s go then.”
“Thanks.” She tucked her hand in his companionably as they walked toward the private elevator. “Roarke, you wouldn’t really kill me, would you?”
“Oh yes, I would.” Smiling easily, he nudged her into the car. “But, given our relationship, I would trouble to do so quickly, and with as little pain as possible.”
She shot him a glance. “Then I’ll have to say same goes.”
“Naturally. East wing, third level,” he ordered, and gave her hand a companionable squeeze. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
chapter thirteen
For the next few days, Eve beat her head against the wall of every dead end. When she needed a change of pace to clear her mind, she beat Peabody’s head against the wall. She hounded Feeney to eke out whatever free time he could to find her something. Anything.
She gritted her teeth when other cases landed on her desk, and she worked overtime.
When the lab boys dragged their feet, she hopped on their backs and rode them mercilessly. It got to the point that the lab began to dodge her communications. To combat that, she hauled Peabody down to the lab for a little face-to-face persuasion.
“Don’t try to sell me that SOS about backup, Dickie.”
Dickie Berenski, privately known as Dickhead, looked pained. As chief lab tech, he should have been able to delegate a half dozen drones to ward off a personal confrontation with an irate detective, but every one of them had deserted him.
Heads would roll, he thought, and sighed. “What do you mean SOS?”
“Same old shit, Dickie. It’s always SOS with you.”
He scowled but decided to make the acronym his own. “Listen, Dallas, I got you the breakdown on all the over the counters, didn’t I? Flagged them personally as a favor.”
“Favor, my ass, I bribed you with box seats for the Arena Ball play-offs.”
His face went prim. “I assumed that was a gift.”
“And I’m not bribing you again.” She jabbed a finger into his puny chest. “What’s the deal with the VR goggles? Why haven’t I got your report?”
“Because I haven’t found anything to report. It’s a hot program, Dallas—” His eyebrows did a little suggestive dance. “But it was clean. No defects. So are all the other options on that unit—clean and up to code. Better than,” he added, his voice whining faintly. “We should have so good. I had Sheila take the whole unit apart and put it back together. Damn fine equipment, top of the line—higher than top. The technology’s off the scale. But that’s to be expected. It’s a Roarke product.”
“It’s a—” She broke off, struggling not to show her surprise or distress at this new tidbit of information. “Which plant manufactures it?”
“Hell, Sheila’s got that data. Off planet, I’m pretty sure. Cheaper labor. And that baby was right off the ship. Hasn’t been on the open market more than a month.”
Her stomach had clutched and tightened further. “But it’s not defective?”
“Nope. It’s a real honey. I’ve already put in for one of my own.” He wiggled his brows hopefully. “Of course, you could probably get me a unit at cost.”
“You get me the report, now, every single detail, and release the unit to me, and I’ll think about it.”
“It’s Sheila’s flex day,” he whined, his mouth stretching down in a search for pity. “She’ll have the report finished up and on your desk by noon tomorrow.”
“Now, Dickie.” A good cop knew her quarry’s weaknesses. “And I’ll see about making you a gift of your own unit.”
“Well, in that case . . . hang for ten.” Cheery now, he hurried over to a computer bank tucked in one of the cubbyholes in the lab’s beehive.
“Dallas, one of those units probably goes for two thousand, base.” Peabody stared after Dickie in disgust. “You overbribed him.”
“I want that report.” Eve imagined that Roarke had a case of the units somewhere for promotional giveaways. Giveaways, she thought with a sick roll in her stomach, to politicians, employees, prominent citizens. “I’m down to three days. And nothing. I won’t be able to waltz Whitney toward an extension.” She looked back over as Dickie pushed out of the cubicle.
“Sheila had it almost nailed down.” He offered a sealed disc and a hard copy. “Look at this. This is a compu-graft of the VR pattern for the last program. Sheila’s highlighted a couple of blips.”
“What do you mean, blips?” Eve snatched the page and studied what appeared to be a series of lightning bolts and swirls.
“Can’t say for certain. Probably the subliminal relaxation, or in this case, substimulation option. Some of the newer units are offering several extended subliminal packages. You can see these shadow the program, slide in every few seconds.”
“Suggestions?” She felt her energy surge. “You mean the program was fitted with subliminal suggestions to the user?”
“Common enough practice. It’s been used for habit breaking, sexual enhancement, mind expanding, and so on for decades. My old man quit tobacco on subliminals fifty years ago.”
“What about planting urges. . .such as self-termination?”
“Look, subs give you little nudges toward hunger, consumer goods, or aid in habit breaking. That kind of direct suggestion?” He tugged at his lip, shook his head. “You’d have to go deeper, and I’d say it would take a long series of sessions to make the suggestion stick on a normal brain. Survival instinct’s too strong.”
He shook his head again, convinced. “We played those programs over and over.”
Particularly the sexual fantasy sequences, Eve thought.
“Ran them on test subjects, into the droid for analysis. We got nobody jumping off the roof. In fact, we got no unusual reaction from anyone or out of the droid. It’s just a top flight, that’s it.”
“I want a full analysis on the subliminal shadows.”
He’d already anticipated that. “I need to keep the unit then. Sheila’s started on it, as you can see, but it takes time. You’ve got to run the program, back out the overt VR, expunge the subliminals. Then it takes compu time to test, analyze, and report. A good subliminal, and I guarantee this one’s an ace, is subtle. Chasing down its pattern isn’t like reading a truth analysis.”
“How much time?”
“Two days, a day and a half if we get lucky.”
“Get lucky,” she suggested and passed the hard copy to Peabody.
Eve tried not to worry about the fact that the VR was one of Roarke’s toys, or what the consequences could be if it was indeed found to be part of the coercion. Subliminal shadows. That could be the connection she’d been searching for. The next step was to tag the VR units that had been in Fitzhugh’s, Mathias’s, and Pearly’s possession at time of death.
With Peabody keeping pace, she hustled down the sidewalk. Her vehicle was—still—in Maintenance. Eve didn’t think it worth the incredible headache of requisitioning a sub for a three-block hike.
“Autumn’s coming.”
“Huh?”
Curious that Eve seemed oblivious to the freshening in the air, the balmy scent on the eastward breeze, Peabody paused to take a deep breath. “You can smell it.”
“What are you doing?” Eve demanded. “Are you crazy? Suck in enough of New York and you’ll have to spend a day in detox.”
“You get past the transport fumes and the body odor and it’s wonderful. They might just pass that new fresh air bill this election.”
Eve spared her aide a glance. “Your Free-Ager’s showing, Peabody.”
“Nothing wrong with environmental concerns. If it wasn’t for the tree huggers, we’d all be wearing filter masks and sunshades year round.” Peabody looked longingly at a people glide but matched her pace to Eve’s long-legged stride. “Not to put a damper on things, Lieutenant, but you’re going to have to do a major tap dance to access those VR units. SOP would be for them to have been returned to the deceaseds’ estates by this time.”
“I’ll get them—and I want this kept quiet, on a need-to-know basis only—until I sort it out.”
“Understood.” She waited a moment. “I’d imagine Roarke has so many tentacles out there it would be impossible to know who’s doing exactly what at any given time.”
“It’s a conflict of interest and we both know it. I’m putting your ass on the line with this.”
“Sorry to disagree, sir, but I’m in charge of my own ass. It’s only on the line if I put it there.”
“So noted and appreciated.”
“Then you can also note that I’m a big fan of Arena Ball as well, sir.”
Eve stopped, took a long look, then laughed. “One ticket or two?”
“Two. I could get lucky.”
They exchanged grins just as a shrill siren split the air. “Oh hell, oh shit, five minutes either way and we’d have slipped by this.”
Eve drew her weapon and spun on her heel. The alarm pealed from the credit exchange center directly in front of her. “What fool hits a CEC two blocks from Cop Central? Clear the street, Peabody,” she ordered, “then cover the back exit.”
The first order was almost unnecessary as pedestrians were already scattering, trampling each other over glides and skywalks in a rush for cover. Eve whipped out her communicator, gave the standard order for backup before she dived through the automatic doors.
The lobby was a mass of confusion. Her only advantage was that the wave of people were rushing out as she rushed in, and they offered some cover. Like most CECs, the lobby area was small, windowless, banked with high counters for personal privacy. Only one of the personal service counters was manned by a human, the other three by droids who had gone into automatic shutdown once the panic button had been pushed.
The lone human was a female, probably midtwenties, with closely cropped black hair, a tidy, conservative white jumpsuit, and an expression of utter terror on her face as she was held through the security port by the throat.
The man who gripped her was busy squeezing off her air and waving what was certainly a homemade explosive with his free hand.
“I’ll kill her. I’ll fucking stuff it down her throat.”
The threat didn’t worry Eve nearly as much as the calm, deliberate manner in which it was delivered. She discounted chemicals and a professional status. From the appearance of his threadbare jeans and shirt, the tired, unshaven face, she concluded she had one of the city’s desperately poor on her hands.
“She hasn’t done anything to you.” With the first mad rush already out the door, Eve approached slowly. “She’s not responsible. Why don’t you let her go?”
“Everyone’s done something to me. Everyone’s part of the system.” He yanked, pulling the hapless clerk a little farther through the security port. She was wedged now to the shoulders and turning faintly blue. “Keep back,” he said quietly. “I’ve got nothing to lose and nowhere to go.”
“You’re choking her. Snuff her and you’ve got no shield. Ease up a little. What’s your name?”
“Names don’t count for shit.” But he did loosen his grip enough to have the young clerk wheeze in a desperate breath. “Money’s what matters. I walk out with a bag of credits, nobody gets hurt. Hell, they’ll just make more.”
“It doesn’t work th
at way.” Cautious, Eve took another three steps, keeping her eyes on his. “You know you’re not going to get out of here. By now the street’s blocked, the security units are deployed. Jesus, pal, the area’s lousy with cops any time of the day or night. You could’ve picked better than this.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Peabody slide through the rear access and take up her position. Neither of them could risk firing while he had the clerk and the explosive in his hands.
“If you drop that thing, even sweat too much, it could blow. Then everybody dies here.”
“Then we’ll all die here. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Let the clerk go. She’s a civilian. She’s just trying to make a living.”
“So was I.”
She saw it in his eyes just an instant too late. The utter despair. In a blink he tossed the hand-held boomer high and right. Eve’s life flashed obscenely before her eyes as she sprinted forward and made the dive. She missed by a fingertip.
Even as she braced for the insult of the blast, the crudely made ball rolled into a corner, bobbled, then settled quietly.
“Dud.” The would-be thief let out a weak laugh. “Doesn’t it just figure?” Then, as Eve popped to her feet, he charged.
She didn’t have time to aim, much less fire her weapon. He hit her like a battering ram, driving her back hard into one of the self-service counters. The explosion came now, inside her head as her hip slammed painfully into the edge. Sheer luck had her holding onto her weapon as stars burst in her head. She hoped the crack she heard was the cheap laminate giving and not bone.
He had her gripped in a pathetically loverlike embrace that was surprisingly effective. It blocked her weapon and pinned against the counter, so she was forced to shift her body weight rather than pivot.
They hit the floor, and this time she was unlucky enough to land first so that his thin, panic-fueled body dropped heavily on hers. Her elbow cracked on the tile, her knee jarred and twisted viciously. With more enthusiasm than finesse, she rammed the side of her weapon against his temple.