Crashed (14 page)

"Of course." It wouldn't do for a man of his stature to be zone-hopping like a Savona-style crackpot, spilling his guts to the masses. And my father had long made clear his belief that true power acted in silence and shadow.

"He wants you to come home," Ben said.

If he wanted that, he would have made it happen. My father didn't do subtle, and he didn't do voluntary.

"What's your point?" I asked, wondering if I should reconsider the whole jumping-out-of-the-car thing. But that would prove Ben right. Like I was someone who preferred not to ask questions because I was too weak to deal with the answers.

"I think you're a little confused about who your real friends are," Ben said.

"I'm not--"

"It's understandable." His drone was maddeningly calm. "You know, Lia, as an official BioMax rep, it's policy to remain a watchful distance from all our clients, but . . ." He cleared his throat. "Did I ever tell you that you were my first?"

I shook my head. Thinking:
Who cares?

"It was my job to help you and your family through the transition period, and I can't help feeling as if I've failed you." He pressed his fingertips together, then tapped them against each other, one by one. "I probably shouldn't admit that. But I feel responsible for you, Lia. I worry."

"Good show," I said, giving him a slow clap. "Though next time, you might want to try a single tear rolling down your cheek. Much more effective."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "You're growing cynical in your old age."

"Check the manual," I said. "I don't age."

"Fine." Ben leaned forward and keyed something into the nav-panel. "I'll take you back. Obviously there's no point in discussing this further."

"You noticed."

"Loyalty's a tricky thing," Ben said. "Just because you give it to someone doesn't mean you get it back."

"Funny, this feels like discussing."

"There's nothing to discuss," Ben said. "You've made that clear. You'll go back to the Sharpe estate. You'll do your best to pretend the last several days never happened."

As if I could.

"You'll probably tell your friend Jude everything I've said here, just to prove to him how loyal you are. Or prove it to yourself. And then, once you've had time to think about it, you'll get in touch with me and give me the name of Jude's BioMax contact."

"I think your fortune-telling skills are failing you," I said. "Because there's no way." Not that I owed Jude anything. But I owed Ben even less.

"I'd prefer you do it because you want to," Ben said. "I'd rather convince you that Jude's not doing any of you favors by loading you up with untested tech."

"Well, you can't, and you shouldn't--"

"I'd
prefer
to do it that way," he said over me. "But since that's not an option, we'll resort to plan B. Reciprocation."

"What the hell is that?"

Ben smiled. "You give me the name--and I keep quiet about your unfortunately timed presence at the Synapsis Corp-Town. I keep those records where they are. Buried. Simple reciprocity."

"Blackmail."

He shrugged. "Whatever. Take a couple weeks to think about it. I'm a patient man."

He reached forward and flicked a finger across the car's control panel and--so smoothly it was almost imperceptible, we accelerated, the landscape bleeding past in a blur of color. Even at this speed, the car cornered tightly, veering back onto the highway, flying toward home.

We were running out of time, and he hadn't told me the one thing I needed to know. I hated to ask him for anything. "So if you're tracking us, you must know," I said, so quietly he had to tip his head toward me to catch the words. "You know who else was at the corp-town. Who did it."

"Who killed all those people, you mean? Who set you up?"

Assuming it wasn't you,
I thought. "If you know, how can you just . . . do
nothing
?"

Ben smiled thinly. "I know you were there, and I'm doing nothing about that," he said.

"It's not the same."

"I already told you," he said irritably. It was the first real emotion I'd seen from him the whole trip. At least, I assumed it was real. "It's my job to protect you.
All
of you."

"Then what the hell is the point of the tracking?" I countered. "You said it was to keep us out of trouble--what, that doesn't include trying to kill hundreds of people?"

"You don't think I'd do something if I could?" he shouted-- then abruptly fell silent.

"Then
do
it," I hissed. After everything I'd seen the last few days, I didn't have any sympathy left. Certainly not for him.

He didn't respond.

"You don't know who it is, do you?" I said suddenly. Just guessing--but I saw on his face it was true. "Your precious spy gear crapped out on you."

"No technology is foolproof," he said steadily. "You'd do well to remember that."

I didn't bother to answer. He no longer had anything I needed. We drove the rest of the way in silence.

"A pleasure, as always," Ben said as the car stopped at the southern boundary of Quinn's estate. He reached across me to open the door. I jerked away just before his arm could brush my chest.

I got out of the car, resisting the temptation to slam the door on his fingertips.

"And remember, Lia." He scratched the back of his head, letting his fingers rest on the spot where his skull met his neck, the spot where, somewhere inside my own head, a microscopic GPS chip was broadcasting my location to his bosses. And to my father. "We'll be watching."

I didn't want to go back to the house. I wanted to stay there, in the green empty, the concrete strip of road to my left and the estate grounds to my right. I wanted to pretend that I was stranded on the side of the road, come from nowhere, with nowhere to go. No one waiting for me. No one watching me.

I hadn't been this free since before the corp-town attack-- free to wade through the overgrown grass, find the rambling path that would take me to the house, or to turn in the opposite direction, to the road, and start walking. Toward Lia Kahn's home, Lia Kahn's father, Lia Kahn's past.

Or just walking toward nothing. Filling myself up with nothing, an emptiness that could blot out the faces of the dead, call-me-Ben's voice, my father's hands on my shoulders, his lips brushing against my hair.

I belong here,
I thought, trying to convince myself to climb the grassy slope.
I belong with them.

Jude was up there. Jude, who might have set all this in motion. And when I got to the house, he was waiting for me.

"Took you long enough," he said, leaning against the door-frame of the main entrance. Even Jude looked small beside the columns of marble and steel.

"I'm fine, Jude," I said with a sneer, trying to gauge something from his expression. But there was no guilt, no shame, only judgment. I couldn't have been killed, so why was I making such a fuss? "Thanks so much for your concern."

"They're waiting for you inside," he said.

"Who?"

"Your many friends and admirers," he said, with a go-figure shrug.

"Riley?" I asked.

Jude nodded.

"Is he . . . okay?"

"What do you care?"

"I don't."

Jude grimaced. "He's here, he's fine. He's inside with the rest. Seems everyone wants to know about your adventures."

"But not you."

"I know enough," he said. "I've been watching the vids. It's not pretty."

"No," I said. "But I guess mass murder usually isn't."

Jude shook his head, a look of impatience flashing across his face. "I don't mean that. I mean that vid of you--"

"Not
me
!"

"Right. Whatever. That vid of someone who
looks
like you pumping poison into the system. The whole world thinks we just declared war on the orgs. It didn't occur to you to
voice
me when any of this happened?"

"So
that's
what you're mad about. Can't stand that we actually handled something without you."

"Handled it." Jude snorted. "Right. I've already talked to Riley.
He
wanted to come to me. You stopped him. You let him go back to that place
alone
. It didn't occur to you I could have
helped
?"

"Could you have?" There was something strange about talking to Jude. The conversation felt familiar and profoundly alien all at once. It was the same disconnect that came from looking around at the place I'd been living in for the last six months. Like nothing was the same anymore. I wondered if this was how my father felt when he looked at me. Like he was staring at a two-dimensional copy of something he'd once cared about.

Jude smashed a fist into the doorframe. His face stayed calm. "Go ahead. Ask me."

"What?"

"You know what."

I was too tired for the game. I gave him what he wanted. "Did you set me up?" I asked flatly. "Did you kill all those people?"

He didn't flinch. "You going to believe me if I say no?"

"Say it," I suggested, "and we'll find out."

"If you think I could do something like that, I'm not going to waste my time convincing you otherwise," he said.

"Not much of an answer."

"Why even stay here if that's what you think of me?" he asked. "Why don't you just go?"

Go where?
I thought. "Fine." Calling his bluff. "I guess we're done here. I'll pack up and be out by morning."

"Wait," he said quietly. "Ask Riley."

"Ask him what?"

Jude picked at a loose stone in the doorframe, scraping out the sediment between the stone and wood. He turned half away from me, his shoulders hunched, his head angled toward the door. "Ask him, and he'll tell you I wouldn't do this," he said, careful to keep his eyes on the wall. "If you really think . . ."

I didn't know what I thought anymore. "What am I supposed to think?"

He started to speak but choked off the words. Then he shook his head. "Think whatever the hell you want."

"Jude--"

Suddenly, he whirled from the wall, facing me head-on. "I wasn't the only one who knew you'd be at Synapsis."

"What?"

It was like he was fighting a war with himself, the part that didn't care what I thought battling the part that needed me to believe him.

"You think it had to be me, because I sent you there," he said. "That I was the only one who knew. But I
wasn't
." He sounded like a child, denying that he'd thrown the ball, broken the window. I waited for him to blame it on his imaginary friend.

"Let me guess, I'm forgetting about your mysterious contact," I said. "The reason for the whole stupid rendezvous."

"That's not what I mean." Jude hesitated. He slipped down along the wall and perched on one of the stairs climbing up to the entrance. I stayed on my feet. "If I tell you something, will you swear to keep it to yourself?"

"I don't make blind promises."
Not to you.

"BioMax is tracking us," he said. "GPS. They know wherever we go."

"You
knew
?"

"
You
knew?" He gaped at me. "How?"

"You're the genius, right? Figure it out." I was too angry to look at him. To think that he'd known all along and hadn't
told
us? Hadn't done
anything
?

"You can't tell anyone," he said.

"No, apparently
you
can't tell anyone!" I yelled. "Because you're on such a freaking power trip about being the all-knowing Jude! How
dare
you keep this a secret?"

"What the hell was I supposed to do?" he asked. "If people knew . . . well, look how
you're
reacting. I didn't want to start an unnecessary panic."

"I'm having a little trouble with the 'unnecessary' part-- they're
spying
on us, Jude." I started pacing back and force, trying to force out some of the anger through motion, but it didn't work like that, not in the mech body. My brain just kept whirring, furious at all of them.

Jude was still sitting down, sprawled almost casually against the stone stairs. "BioMax isn't our enemy. Not yet at least."

"You so sure about that? Or you think it was just a
coincidence
that the attack happened while we were at the corp-town? That your so-called source never showed up? Wake up, Jude. Either BioMax has something to do with this or . . ."

"Or I did," he said sourly. "Back to that."

"What the hell am I supposed to think? Especially when you're telling me you trust them. Even after
this
?"

"I don't trust anyone," Jude said coldly. "You think you're the only one who can do the math here? Are you really surprised? Did you believe all the BioMax crap, that they have our best interests at heart?"

"That's exactly my point!"

"No! That's exactly
my
point. If certain elements of BioMax were involved in this, all the more reason not to let them know we're onto their tracking tech. Let them think we're totally clueless. Let them expose themselves for what they really are."

"And until then, what? We just sit around and
wait
?" I asked in disbelief. "How can you even stand it? Knowing--" I shuddered. "Knowing they're
watching
you."

He didn't say anything. His gaze flicked away, just for a second, but it was long enough to reveal that there was something else. And I'd just hit on it.

Just like when I was in the car with call-me-Ben and he'd accidentally let slip that the trackers weren't foolproof.

"But they're
not
watching you, are they?" I said slowly, forcing myself not to yell.

He shrugged but couldn't refrain from cracking a small, sharklike smile. He was actually
proud.

"They think they are," he said. Boasted. "Streaming live GPS, mapping my every move. And it's all bullshit. I've been feeding them false data for months."

"While you let the rest of us . . ." I stopped, searching for the words. I wanted to get this out right. No incoherent anger or misplaced betrayal, irrational reactions that he could brush off as weak and orglike. "You didn't bother to tell any of us," I said finally. "You let us hang and saved yourself."