Wired, page 8
“Rox?”
I jumped.
He motioned to the computer with a tilt of his head. “Anything weird yet? Files missing, stuff moved around?”
“I’m almost ready to pack it in. If Leonardo took something, put something in, or altered something, then it’s been totally masked. His engineers must be good.” At first glance, everything was there. At second glance, everything was still there. I couldn’t find any evidence that files had been moved or even read. The only bread crumb I could find was that the last date and time of access had been reset to 00/00/00, 00:00:00. That was weird.
“So Leonardo didn’t find anything he could use.”
“Like some code, perhaps?” Mason hadn’t revealed any more details of his mission.
He grimaced. “Like some code. But like I said, we’d have known about it by now if he had much to work with.”
“How so?”
He looked at me over his book, cagey. “Oh. I just meant that he’d be kicking things into high gear if he could.” And with that, he closed his eyes and stretched out, both legs propped up on the arm of the chaise.
Well, that had cleared up absolutely nothing.
“Mason?”
“Mmm?”
“You are so transparent. I don’t think it’s humanly possible to be more vague.”
He didn’t answer. Annoyed, I pulled up a search engine and typed the name I’d heard a million times but hadn’t gotten an adequate explanation for:
Your search—“Leonardo Kaysar”—did not match any documents.
Suggestions:
Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
Try different keywords.
Try more general keywords.
No documents. No documents? There was not one reference on the Internet to the man?
Most people were there somewhere. Okay, not necessarily most people. But a man like Leonardo? How could he possibly fly below the radar on the Web? That just wasn’t a good sign.
Mason opened one eye and yawned.
“You’re still here,” I noted dryly. “Shouldn’t you be out there somewhere trying to stop Leonardo from world domination or whatever he wants?”
“I’m waiting for some info from my office,” he said absently, shaking the ice in his cup.
“Oh.” I knew I wouldn’t get any more from him.
Mason apparently had drunk all the way down to the really loud slurpy point of his Big Gulp. It was nearly impossible to concentrate, and why I didn’t just throw him out would be fodder for thought for yet another sleepless night. So I couldn’t work and I couldn’t let on that all of my old feelings for him were seeping back into my system like . . . like . . . rusty water dripping from a faucet, constant and irritating.
Apparently today his choice between annoying and annoyingly sexy was the former. He slurped loudly again, knowing that I’d look. Which, of course, I did. I glanced behind me, ready to give him a piece of my mind, when my glance caught the cover of the book he was reading. The cover was . . . pink. Mason Merrick was reading a book with a pink cover? Heh.
I spun around in my chair and looked at him. “You’re reading a chick book?”
He didn’t look up. “I feel confident enough in my masculinity to answer in the affirmative without even the slightest hint of embarrassment.”
I got up and walked over to him, twisting the paperback so I could see the cover. “You are reading a chick book,” I repeated, snorting with laughter. It was just so incongruous.
He finally looked up at me over it. “Yes, he said. “I am.” A beat passed, and he squinted at me. “Roxy, is that a smile? Are you smiling?”
I tamped whatever was happening with the corner of my mouth back into a straight line. “Does this happen often?” I pressed.
“No, you never smile. I’m beginning to wonder if you’re coming down with something.”
“Ha, ha. I was talking about the book,” I said.
“Oh, this?” He gestured grandly with the paperback. “Absolutely. I feel it gives me the sort of insight into women you just can’t get from personal experience.”
I snorted again, imagining. “Mmm. That makes sense. Having wine constantly thrown in one’s face can teach one only so much.”
“You scoff, but consider this: Boil it down to its most simplistic components: Chick books are about relationships. What could be more beautiful, more”—he gripped at his chest, again entirely serious—“more meaningful than reading about two people destined to be together after a series of struggles?”
I leaned a little closer and set my internal calibration to double-plus sarcastic. “Hot damn, Merrick! That’s not a tear welling in your eye, is it? Oh, my God, I’m getting so turned on!”
He dropped the book, leaped to his feet, and began backing me toward the desk in a feral sort of way. “Really?” he asked.
“I was kidding,” I said hastily. And I had been. Mason’s reading a chick book had made me curious about the chick book, not about Mason. That’s what I told myself. Except, this stalking business of his really was turning me on, which scared the hell out of me. I ducked under one of his grabby paws and beat a hasty retreat down the stairs, calling out, “Better read on, Merrick. Read on. ’Cause the grubby pages of that book are as close as you’re going to get to a sex scene in this house.”
“Relationships,” he called out. “Feelings! Emotions! You should try them sometime, Roxy!”
I paused on the stairs, annoyed. I retorted, “I do have feelings, Merrick. I just don’t like to waste resources.” Then I tripped down the rest of the steps to the living room, wondering why I was giving him such a hard time.
Slumping on the couch, I found myself unsure what to do now that I’d made such a dramatic exit from my office. I heard a loud bang: Mason using the banister like a set of parallel bars to swing himself from the top of the stairs to the bottom. And then there he was suddenly in front of me, blocking me, moving in on me.
“Roxy.” He leaned down and gave me that wide, All-American grin. “Are you flustered?”
I planted my palm in the middle of his chest and pushed him away, back out of my personal-space box, which would have been glowing red at the corners if it had been visible. There was no way I was going to wipe off the sweat on the back of my neck in front of him.
“I’m . . . don’t . . . flustered,” I babbled. You moron, Roxanne.
“Try forming a complete sentence.”
I collected my wits. “Look, we might as well just say it. We’ve beaten around the bush before. We’re experiencing physical attraction, commonly called a crush, but without the requisite hopes for an emotional attachment—at least on my part—that most often goes with such a condition. Not with your past and this present. And what that means . . .”
His grin got wider and wider.
“What that means,” I repeated loudly, “is that in approximately two days I will be unable to stand the sight or smell or . . . or—”
“Taste?” he inserted hopefully.
“Unable to stand,” I barreled on, “the . . . the mere existence of your presence, and in fact I will be racking my brain”—my voice just kept getting louder, and I couldn’t help myself—“just racking it, trying to figure out how I could have ever felt any sort of attraction for you!”
“Well, at least you admit you’re attracted to me now.”
Shit. But I was up to it. Admitting it would end the unspoken—now spoken—nonsense between us.
“Okay, yes. And I was once before, what seems like decades ago. But if anything, that was just some kind of twisted puppy love. If I was as attracted to you as you seem to want to believe—erroneously attracted, I want to stress—then it was merely in the way that people are attracted to those hairless, scalpy dogs.” I exhaled loudly, then unfortunately had to inhale a huge breath immediately because I seemed to be hyperventilating and knew he’d just scored on me . . . okay, more than just once. My resistance to his charms was ebbing. I actually felt light-headed and confused. Hell, I was emotional. I’d even go so far as to say aroused. Needy.
But Merrick wasn’t showing any mercy. He went for the extra point. He marched right back into my personal space and stuck his index finger on my lips; I was breathing so hard I practically sucked it in. For God’s sake, I could taste the salt. He leaned down, way too close, and said all low and rough, “Roxy, baby, if this is puppy love, then why do I feel like a wild dawg?”
And then he disappeared up the stairs, left me hanging, a bundle of mindless, senseless, tormented, and frustrated boneless limbs.
“Give it time,” I warbled feebly, even though he was probably out of hearing. “You’ll feel better soon.”
I don’t know if I was talking to me or him.
After waiting downstairs, reading magazines I’d already read many times, trying to let enough time pass that I could reasonably go back into my office, I squared my shoulders and marched up the stairs. A noise struck me before I was even halfway up: Mason snoring. I pushed open the office door and had a look.
His arms were tangled above his head, and God help me, but his T-shirt and sweater had sort of crept up so that a slice of toned skin sat there peering at me maliciously. I think I could have spent some significant time watching that swath were it not for a light on his cell phone that started blinking. He’d set it to mute, I guess. And it sat on the side table next to his keys.
I stared at the phone, wondering if he’d stuck any notes under my name and number. I stared a little closer and realized to my enormous delight that this wasn’t so much a phone as it was a . . . gadget. Some sort of crazy, high-tech gadget. And it certainly wasn’t my fault if he was dumb enough to leave it out and think I wouldn’t start salivating or wanting to play with it.
I looked at Mason’s face. The corner of his mouth twitched and he made a sleepy little snorting sound. Adorable, but I had more interesting things to focus on. Very carefully, I crept to the side table and held still for a moment to make sure he didn’t wake up. He didn’t, so I extended my arm slowly and picked the phone up and stepped away again, turning my back on Mason. I glanced over to see if he’d stirred, but he just lay there with his legs hanging over the side arm of the chaise.
So, I opened the device. It wasn’t like any piece of technology I’d seen before. Not really. I mean, it had all of the usual bits and pieces one would expect in a handheld or whatever, but it expanded like a Swiss army knife into something much, much more. I cradled the clamshell design in my hands, staring down at the whisper-thin slices of green-gray opacity representing screens, a snap-out leaf that looked like a built-in microphone and detachable earbud system, and a whole deck of in and out plugs that weren’t the usual sizes. Tiny controls on sliders popped up out of nowhere when my finger grazed over bumpy touch-screen fields of various shapes and colors. A red glow emanated from a small glass square: some sort of infrared or wireless technology that probably projected an input device or perhaps the content itself into thin air.
I’d never seen anything like this—because there wasn’t anything like it. Not even in what I’d read. The geek in me just about died from sheer happiness. He must have picked it up in Japan as a concept beta; it was too advanced. Frankly, it was an impossibility, but since I was holding it in my hand and could see for myself, the only thing that came even close to making sense was Japan. Or the military.
I tentatively pressed the pad of my index finger down on one of the screens. The screen saver flickered and the screen brightened. And even though I knew it was the lamest of the lame and lowest of the low, I continued snooping anyway—I wanted to see what kind of listing Mason had entered under my name.
It wasn’t set up like a normal address book, but more like a radio bar with presets. The presets included ROX APT, ROX 7-ELEVEN, and ROX AGENCY. Kind of strange, but kind of exciting to find that not only did he have me as one of a limited number of presets on the top screen, but he had three of me. Though I couldn’t imagine why he’d call Naveed at the 7-Eleven. Just on the off chance that I was making a doughnut run and could pick up?
“Give it to me, Rox.”
I made a ridiculous sound, a kind of horrified squeal, as Mason took the device out of my hands.
“You want me looking in your computer?” he asked.
“No.”
“All right, then.” He was so quiet. It was a kind of controlled calm that bespoke more danger and intensity than all his yelling put together. His fingers flew over the device; I couldn’t see what he was doing but the light went out.
“I apologize,” I said. “It’s just . . . it’s unbelievable, that thing. All those—”
Mason didn’t say a word. He frowned down at the device, his lips moving slightly as he read something off the screen that was serious enough to erase every ounce of the old, playful, flirty Mason from his being.
“Mason, I mean it. I’m really sorr—”
My words were arrested as he looked up at me. His face was totally blank, as if he hadn’t the faintest idea what I was talking about. Like I was the farthest thing from his mind. He ran his hand over the back of his neck and looked at me impatiently. I pointed at the device and shrugged haplessly in a final apology.
He looked at my finger, then at the device. I think he might have cursed under his breath just before he looked back up at me. He blinked, and I could almost see the wheels in his brain stop and turn in reverse as he tried to find his place in the conversation. “Oh. Yeah. The smartie. The reader. Smartie is slang. But most of that stuff doesn’t work,” he said quickly. “It’s just tricked out, is all.” He stuffed it in his back jeans pocket and looked around, still disoriented, maybe from having just woken up.
“Mason.”
He turned, startled by my vehemence, I guess. I was a little startled, too. “It’s not just ‘tricked out,’ is it?”
“It’s—”
“It’s not just tricked out.” I took a deep breath and forced myself to keep my cool.
“It’s . . .”
I raised an eyebrow.
Mason stood in the middle of my office, his face a study in tension and strain, one hand compulsively curling and uncurling into a fist.
“It’s not just tricked out . . . ,” I repeated in a more encouraging tone.
“It’s not . . . it’s not just tricked out,” he actually admitted.
My jaw dropped. We faced off. It seemed like half a day went by as we thought about how much we wanted to trust each other. That’s what I was thinking, anyway.
Finally he nodded. “It’s hard to know when the right time is. But you’re right. I mean, there are things you’re going to need to know, things you deserve to know. I can see . . .” He sighed heavily. “Maybe I waited too long.”
I waited for Mason to really start explaining, afraid to say another word myself for fear I’d derail his decision to tell me the truth. He was going to tell me the truth.
“Just . . . don’t be scared.”
“Okay. Um, that’s not ominous or anything,” I said, throwing in a little laugh to try and keep things light.
“Yeah, sure,” Mason said absently, chewing on his lower lip. Then he snapped his head up and looked me right into my eyes. “I mean, no. The thing is . . . it depends.”
It depends? Fabulous.
EIGHT
I folded my hands on my lap and waited for the long-overdue explanation. Mason got up. He paced the room. He sat down next to me. He got up. He paced the room.
“Mason!”
“I know, I know.” He looked around the office. “This is not the right space. I’m not feeling it. Let’s go downstairs.”
I gave him a look and he rolled his eyes and said, “Humor me. This isn’t easy.”
I followed him downstairs, and Mason pulled out a chair for me at the formal dining room table I never used. Then he pulled out a chair for himself. The whole thing was suddenly reminiscent of a board-room meeting. Not to mention he was clearly stalling.
After another good five minutes, he finally opened his mouth. “It’s a difficult thing, what I have to say. I really need you to keep an open mind. I need you to accept the possibility of the seemingly impossible. I’ve had to do this many times before, and I know from experience that it doesn’t usually go down easy,” he continued.
I waved impatiently. “Just say what you have to say. Just . . . lay it on me.” He really had me on the edge of my seat now, so I was completely prepared to be underwhelmed. After all, I wasn’t involved in any drug cartels, I hadn’t been kidnapped, and to the best of my knowledge I hadn’t broken any federal laws. There were lots of strange things going on, but it really felt like this explanation was going to be the real one.
Mason leaned in and forced me to meet his eyes. “Have you ever felt a strangeness in the world?”
“Oh, well—”
“A palpable discomfort?”
“I—”
“A sense of wrongness?”
“It’s—”
“An inability to remember something you are certain you should know, something that you think must have been so obvious before? The sensation of something on the tip of your tongue but you can’t spit it out? A really disturbing case of déjà vu?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Don’t answer so quickly. Think about it.”
I did, and this time he didn’t interrupt. “Yes. I can honestly say that I’ve experienced all of those things. And fairly recently, I might add. What’s it about?” I wanted to get to the meat of the matter.
“That’s realignment, Roxanne. That’s the realignment of your reality.”
I looked at him askance. “Um. I, don’t remember you being the woo-woo type.”
“It’s not woo-woo. You see . . .” He took a deep breath, a kind of here-it-goes look on his face, and said, “Fate can be altered. In casual terms, it’s called wire crossing.”
I pushed back an absurd little blip of dread. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“That’s because it hasn’t entered the common language yet.”
“Uh-huh. When does it enter the common language?”
