Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(23)
She wondered if kissing Dr. Farad would also taste like death.
His dark brows ticked up. “Madam Senator, you shock me.”
Wait. “You can read my mind?”
Now it was his turn to look abashed. “Sometimes. The human brain is an electrical machine, and I have recently acquired the ability to see with absurd clarity all electrical activity surrounding me. I confess just now I was testing that ability on you. Please say you won’t tell?”
Was that…was he blushing? Well, well. Angela stifled an urge to laugh as it became agonizingly clear to her that he wasn’t worried about international diplomacy or how something like his weird techno-mind-reading capability would be read into a weapons readiness doc. He was worried she’d tell his lover.
She could understand. Sex partners were terrible confidantes. Frankly, she’d rather Zeke and the rest of the bloody government knew her secrets than her bedmate/partner/spouse. If she actually, you know, had one of those.
Mech-Daniel shifted beside her. “I hate to intrude,” he said in his deferent tone, not the Daniel-esque one, “but I must remind you that the private thoughts of a sitting continental senator are classified. If you are able to peer at said thoughts, please note that they may not be shared, transmitted, or stored without advance clearance and express permission of the rights holder.”
She half expected Heron Farad to laugh at her officious machine. Instead he met mech-Daniel’s gaze sincerely. “Your policy is noted.” He paused and added, “I see also how you care for her.”
Their discussion devolved from that point to Farad’s concern for his partner, the Mari Vallejo rebuild, the thing that thought it was a girl. The thing that had finally, thankfully, killed Daniel.
About halfway through their interview, Mari herself appeared, weary from whatever adventure she had been on and utterly disinterested in chitchatting. Which, honestly, Angela was glad for. She was about to excuse herself when the two, Mari and Heron—who were clearly lovers; yow, handsy! All over each other like limpets—dismissed her.
But not before he agreed to her request for haven, which was her chief purpose in being here. Right? She wasn’t here just because no one in her government realized this arcology was inhabited. Not because she was pretty sure that bomb had been meant for her. Not even because the arcology was isolated in the desert and off-grid—except for that strange half-man in the conference room, his trusted team, and the horde of psychologically traumatized refugees.
And not even one teensy bit because somewhere in this gigantic building, Kellen existed. Not in mere memory this time; really, physically, actually here.
Close enough to touch.
? ? ?
“No messages?” The bed in Angela’s room/prison was humongous, and the vestigial kid in her wanted to starfish out in the deliciously soft synthcotton…and scream.
Or climb the tastefully beige walls.
Or gnaw a hole in the goddamn locked door.
When she’d gotten to her room, she’d immediately run through the urgent stuff like a shower and a power nap, but that had taken, what, an hour total? She’d been here for twenty-eight of the fuckers—with the entire information universe behind a firewall and inaccessible to her. No visitors. No lines of communication. No news. No authority.
She needed answers. She needed information. She needed a new plan.
“No, no messages. But you haven’t reached out to anyone, either,” mech-Daniel reminded her in a voice without judgment, “as we are, in your words, hiding.”
What he said was true. She hadn’t sent any messages since that last note to Farad, requesting haven. Her plan had been to monitor incoming communiqués and see who was concerned for her safety, who was looking for her, who suspected she was dead, and who acted like they already had proof.
If she could get enough data points together, she could construct a picture of what just happened. She could verify that she had in fact been the target, figure out who’d launched the attack, and then systematically destroy that person or group.
If information gathering was the key to her plan, patience was the flaw in it. Angela wasn’t good at patience.
And the whole mess was compounded by her choice of hideout. She hadn’t counted on the Pentarc’s firewall. Apparently Heron Farad kept his secret kingdom off-grid by making it a closed system that only allowed data transfers from the cloud every few hours, and even then, all data packets filtered through his rigorous scrubbing. If someone did try and contact her, she’d have to wait for the next information window to get the message, so there was no way she could track when alerts came in and line that timing up against gossip news speculation about her fate. What she needed was that damn firewall to go away.
Impatience had long since turned to frustration.
Mech-Daniel stood sentry, hands clasped behind his back and gaze looking out the plasteel window of the seventh-floor living unit they’d been assigned to. The recent scar on his face had all but disappeared beneath the wound glue, but Angela could still see it.
“I perceive that you are anxious,” he said.
Angela started. Those words echoed Farad’s weird mind-reading trick a little too closely. “Humans who’ve been recent assassination targets often are, I’m told.”
Mech-Daniel turned to her, away from the window. His bearing was still mechanically stiff, but his face was relaxed, set in its usual wide-open expression. “Also hungry?”