Tell Me No Spies by Diane Henders Page A

his forehead, and I turned
away to forestall any other discussion.
    “Guess I better get
started.” I headed for his cramped office, and let the soothing
task of data entry calm my mind while the music eased my soul.

    After lunch, Linda
greeted me eagerly when I stepped in the door of Up & Coming.
“Aydan, guess what?”
    I grinned down at the
diminutive brunette, envying her bouncy energy. “What?”
    “Clyde asked me to
move in with him.”
    I laughed out loud.
I’d apparently made some incorrect assumptions based on the fact
that Spider blushed at the faintest hint of sexual innuendo.
    “He turned out to be a
fast worker. You’ve only been going out for a couple of months. And
move in where? His house isn’t rebuilt yet, is it?”
    “No, he’s still living
with his parents. His house won’t be ready until November or
December. But when it is, I’m going to move in with him.”
    “Well,
congratulations. He’s a great guy.”
    “He is, isn’t he?” Her
eyes sparkled. “I’m so glad you introduced us.”
    “I didn’t,
really.”
    “Well, no, not really,
but he never would have come in here if he didn’t have to drop off
those papers for you.”
    “That’s definitely
true.” I chuckled, remembering his scarlet face when he’d stood in
the doorway of the sex shop for the first time. I slipped behind
the counter and into their office, still smiling. Life was
good.
    I revised my opinion
when I reached the doorway of my office at Sirius and contemplated
Sam’s enthusiastic grin.
    I groaned. “Not
again.”
    His face fell.
“Sorry.”
    I trailed into the
office and flopped down on the couch. “What are we doing this
time?”
    He shot a sidelong
glance at Kane’s expressionless face. “This time, I need you to go
into the network and sneak around. I want to see what your brain
activity looks like when you turn invisible. And I’d like to see
what happens when you’re breaching firewalls, too.”
    “Our own firewalls in
the Sirius network, or external ones?”
    “Both.”
    “So you’re just going
to hook me up to the headband again?”
    “Yes, that’s all.” I
could tell he was trying to contain his excitement, but his eyes
were sparkling, and his fingers combed his beard over and over.
    I sighed and heaved
myself to my feet. Everybody seemed to have excess energy but me. I
just wanted to shove my head between the sofa cushions and
hibernate.
    Feeling like a
prisoner going into lockdown, I followed the three men
downstairs.
    Underground once more,
I dropped into the chair in Sam’s lab with a notable lack of grace
when my trembling knees collapsed.
    Spider regarded me
with concern. “Are you-”
    “Don’t even ask.”
    He subsided, looking
worried, and my conscience prodded me. “Sorry,” I told him. “I’m
fine. Thanks for being concerned.”
    “Don’t take this
wrong…” He hesitated. “You don’t look fine. You’re shaking like a
leaf, and you’re the same colour as the wall.”
    “I’ll live.”
    Kane glowered in Sam’s
direction. “How many more times does she need to do this?”
    “This might be the
last,” Sam responded cheerfully. “I just need to gather data from a
full range of her activities.”
    Kane squatted in front
of me to look up into my face. “Aydan, can you do this one more
time?”
    “Yeah, no problem,” I
lied. “Ready whenever you are.”
    He eyed me dubiously
before rising to walk over to his chair. “All right.”
    With the crown of
electrodes in place, I closed my eyes for what I fervently hoped
would be the last time I’d enter the network underground.
    I willed myself onto
the mountaintop again, unable to control the urge to flail my arms.
I caught a bare glimpse of Kane’s avatar popping into existence
before the chasm opened under my feet and I plummeted.
    I hurtled downward,
blackness and panic swallowing me. Rocks gouged my flesh as the
shaft narrowed. My arms were pinned to my sides. I jerked and
twisted, animal shrieks tearing