"Not big on hospitals, are you?"
The harsh bite of the antiseptic staining my arm stung my nose as I breathed deep, trying to slow my racing pulse. "What makes you say that?"
Damon looked concerned. "You're approximately the same color as that gown you're wearing. It'll be fine, Maggie."
"Easy for you to say."
"Want me to ask the doc to put you under?"
I shook my head, avoiding looking at the doctor swabbing my wrist. The thought of being unconscious while he implanted my chip was somehow worse than being awake for it.
"Want to hold my hand?" Damon wiggled long fingers in front of my face.
Yes. But I wasn't going to.
I took another breath and tried to think of anything but hospitals. It would all be over soon. The doctor had promised chip surgery was fast.
Apparently not fast enough for my dumb nerves. The temptation to reach out for Damon's hand rose with each heavy thump of my pulse. Me and my stupid business ethics.
"Why are you here again?" I asked. On my own, I could've been a sniveling wimp about the whole thing.
One side of his mouth quirked. "Protecting my investment."
"Don't you have lackeys for that?" I gritted my teeth as the doctor pressed a hypospray to my left shoulder, pretending it was the cold of the local hitting my skin making me shiver.
"Just two more," the doctor said. The hypospray took up a new position at my elbow and I shivered again.
"Maggie, look at me," Damon said.
His voice was strong and soothing. I let myself look into his eyes as the chill from my elbow radiated up to meet the chill spreading down from my shoulder and then spread down toward my hand. I imagined the flesh turning blue. Blue like Damon's eyes. Only that was a warm blue.
"If you're not going to hold my hand, then I'm going to have to do something drastic," Damon continued.
My teeth chattered a little as the hypo hit again at my wrist. "Like what?"
"Shadow puppets," he deadpanned, making bunny ears with his fingers.
My heart thumped. Damon Riley making shadow puppets on the wall to distract me from chip surgery. It would be nice to lean on all that strength, but standing on my own two feet was pretty deeply ingrained. "Is that the best you can do?"
His dimples flashed. "Tough audience, huh? Well, I'm just getting started. Watch this."
True to the doctor's word, the surgery went smoothly.
Damon made truly terrible shadow puppets until I relaxed, then distracted me with tech talk while the surgeon did his thing. Somewhere along the line, Damon's fingers closed around my other hand, and I pretended not to notice.
"All done," Dr. Barnard said sooner than I'd expected.
I turned my head to the left as the nurse lifted the drape they'd placed between me and my arm so I couldn't see the actual operation. There it was. A chip. My own little gold and silver spider web spread over my wrist, looking like it had always been there. Weird. Even weirder when I couldn't feel a thing in my arm, so none of it seemed to belong to me at all.
They reversed the nerve blocks, ran some tests, and pronounced me free to go when everything seemed to be working as it should.
"You need to rest the arm," Dr. Barnard said, carefully smoothing the edges of a clear surgical shield over the chip with cool fingers. "No using the chip. The nerves need to adjust. So take the meds and take it easy. The shield will last at least five days, so I expect to see it intact when you come back on Monday for your final diagnostics."
Obviously he was used to eager game-heads who couldn't wait to try out their new toy. Not me. For once, I was more than happy to follow instructions.
"I told you it wasn't so bad," Damon said once we were tucked into the back of his limo and gliding through the streets to SoMa. He had an actual driver. Interesting. Self-driving cars had lost popularity here after the quake—due to a number of them not reacting to quake damage fast enough and plunging their occupants to their deaths down fissures and off bridges—but they were slowly making a comeback. I used them occasionally but stuck to the cab and ride companies that included a driver in the front seat to override in an emergency. I wondered if Damon shared my doubts or whether the driver was some sort of status symbol.
Not the kind of question I felt comfortable asking.
"I guess we'll find out on Monday," I said, determined not to say, “Yes, Damon, you were right.” My new theory was that the only way to deal with him and his unsettling effect on my nerves was to try and keep him a little off-balance. Not play into the whole lord-of-all-he-surveyed thing he had going on.
How the theory would work in practice remained, like the success of my surgery, to be seen.
I stared down at the chip, wondering if it was the slightly blurry view through the shield or mental whiplash that made it seem not quite real. Or the fact that whatever drugs the doc had given me were first-class. Apart from the odd sensation that my wrist didn't quite belong to me, I wouldn't have known I'd had surgery. I was strangely energized, like the chip was sending an extra current of electricity through my nerves. None of the drowsiness I'd been warned to expect. It seemed I wouldn't be catching up on my sleep after all.
"It will be fine," he said, pulling out his datapad. "We've never had a chip implantation go wrong." He started scrolling through messages and typing his responses. His hands looked strong and capable as his fingers danced.
I curled my right hand into a ball, remembering the warmth of those fingers on mine, and made myself look away. Time to admire the scenery out the window before my brain placed him permanently into the role of the all-too-appealing white knight.
"You don't need to get out," I said when the driver slid the limo effortlessly into a parking stack near my building. "I can make it up the stairs." In fact, I felt like I could run up them. Maybe I could convince Nat that we needed a workout. Then I remembered the doctor's orders to take it easy and blew out a breath. I was going to have to spend the next few days camped out at home, being sensible. Not a pleasing prospect if I was going to feel like this the whole time.
"It's no trouble," Damon said. His tone had a strong hint of “don't argue.”
I rolled my eyes at him as the driver opened my door. "It's two o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and this neighborhood is perfectly safe. Don't you have, you know, business to attend to?" A guy like him didn't just have a spare few hours in his schedule with short notice. He had to have canceled important stuff to accompany me to surgery. And there had to be a pile of work waiting for him. As the messages that had kept him busy during the drive here proved.
He shook his head. "Finding out if there's anything wrong with my game is my priority. And right now, that means making sure nothing happens to you. So I'll see you to your door."
I frowned. He just stared back calmly. Then the penny dropped. "You want to check out my security systems or something, don't you?"
He didn't bat an eyelid. "Like I said, I need to be sure nothing is going to happen to you."
"I'm assuming you're not going to leave until I agree?"
"Correct."
I climbed out with an exasperated sigh. "My roommate is home. She's a huge Righteous fan."
He came around the car with a grin. "I'm always happy to meet fans."
"Huge fan," I repeated. "Maximum geek. Don't say I didn't warn you."
From the look on Nat's face when I walked into the apartment with Damon in tow I thought she might pass out.
Instead she was just rendered speechless.
"Damon Riley, Natalia Marcos," I said as Nat made fish-face.
"Nice to meet you, Natalia," Damon said with a smile.
"You're . . . you're . . . you're Damon Riley," Nat sputtered.
"He's just here for a minute, Nat. Breathe." I turned to Damon and pointed to the house comp panel. "If you want to check things out, the system is there."
I crossed the room to where Nat still stood, jaw open, and snapped my fingers in front of her face. "Nat. Breathe."
She blinked, blushing, then looked down at the sweaty gym slicks gracing her body and turned pale. "Argh! You could've at least warned me." She bolted from the room.
I turned back to Damon. "If you work quick, you can probably make it out of here before she gets back."
He shrugged, not lifting his eyes from the comp screen. "It's fine. What's the password?"
I crossed over and put my palm on the scanner, then punched in the code. "There. And I'll be resetting that once you've gone."
He nodded. "Of course." His fingers did their dance over the screen, calling up our security specs.
From the bathroom came the sounds of the shower. Obviously Nat had decided just changing wasn't enough. So we had a few minutes.
"I meant it when I said work fast. She'll probably try and hit you up for a testing role."
One blue eye slanted in my direction. "She's been doing well lately. Plays for the Raiders, right?"
I nodded. Of course he'd know her stats. After all, he'd tracked me down at Decker's. "Right."
He shrugged one shoulder. "They're good. So's she."
"Keeping secrets isn't her strong point." I felt obliged to be honest. The last thing I needed was Nat's inability to keep her mouth zipped losing me this job.
"There are different kinds of testers. We can keep things under wraps."
Maybe he'd lock Nat up on the Righteous campus. Which meant I'd probably starve. "I'm just saying, don't do her any favors on my account."
The comp beeped happily as he tapped in another sequence. "I'm not. We've been watching her."
"I'm not sure I want her involved in any of this. Not while there's a problem."
His head snapped up, eyes suddenly laser bright and narrowed straight at me. "You think I'd deliberately put someone at risk?"
"No."
"Then perhaps you'll just need to put the same trust in me that you want me to put in you."
Touché. And crap. I couldn't argue with that one.
Another series of beeps issued from the comp panel, one I'd never heard before. "What did you just do?" I asked, squinting at the screen. Nothing looked different.
"A minor upgrade. Nothing to worry about. I'll send you the documentation."
To quote Nat, “argh.”
"Ever heard of asking for permission?"
He grinned. "I prefer asking for forgiveness after the event."
Why didn't that surprise me? "Does anyone ever not give it to you?" I snapped.
"You'd be surprised."
"I'd be shocked." I waved my hand irritably, then sucked in a breath when my arm throbbed. Apparently the doc's excellent drugs were wearing off.
Damon frowned. "You should sit down."
Back to white knight mode. I knew I should resist, but he made it difficult. It couldn't hurt, could it? Just to let someone take care of things for a few minutes?
My arm throbbed in agreement, and I stopped fighting and let him herd me over to the sofa. I still felt wide awake, but the ache in my arm was growing stronger. "Are you almost done?" I asked as he tucked a pillow behind my back and slid another one onto my lap beneath my arm.
"Almost. Take one of these." He fished a tube of pills out of his pocket.
"What are they?"
"Your prescription."
He held the tube closer to my nose and, sure enough, my name was printed on the label in nice neat letters.
I recognized the name of the drug. It was a painkiller but one that came with a side helping of sedatives. Wonderful. Even through the worst of my insomnia, I hated taking sedatives or sleepers. They just made the dreams worse.
"I'll need a glass of water," I said, stalling. Maybe I could palm the pill.
"I'll get it." He looked around, then nodded toward the door that led to the kitchen. "That way?"
Really, he was annoyingly competent and annoyingly nice when he wasn't being annoyingly highhanded. "Yes. Glasses in the cabinet next to the sink."
He disappeared and I leaned back against the cushions, rubbing my arm and hoping he'd get back fast and then leave.
"Is he still here?"
Nat. I opened my eyes reluctantly. "Yes. He's in the kitchen."
She looked like she didn't know whether to be relieved or upset. Her short blonde hair was damp, but otherwise she'd worked a major clothing upgrade in a very short time. "You could've warned me," she said in a softer voice.
"I didn't know he was coming up until we got here," I pointed out in the same low tone. "And yes, surgery went fine, thanks for asking."
She blushed again. "Sorry. It's just . . . he's Damon Riley."
"I know. But he's just a guy, Nat. And right now he's my client, so can you pull it together?"
"Pull what together?" Damon asked from the door. He had a glass of water in one hand.
"Dinner," I lied. "Nat was just asking what I felt like eating."
He leaned against the doorframe and did the dimple flash. "Is that an invitation?"
"Can I have my water, please? And no, you can't stay for dinner." I glared at Nat when she nudged my ankle in protest. "It's hours away. Go do tycoon things. I need to rest, remember?"
"Maybe some other time," Nat chimed in. "When Maggie's feeling better."
I doubted there was ever going to be a time when I felt like a nice casual dinner with Damon. At least not with a third wheel along.
"That would be great," Damon said, crossing the room and depositing himself on the arm of my sofa.
Nat's expression went a little star-struck when he smiled at her.
"You play for the Raiders, right?" Damon continued.
I fought the urge to smother myself with a cushion. He was going to offer her a testing job.
"Yes." Nat's voice squeaked. Her cheeks were bright pink. "Yes, we're in Division C, top eight."
"Impressive. What's your preference?"
"Quests, usually."
"Me too. More interesting than just blowing things up."
"Blowing things up sounds strangely appealing right now," I muttered.
Damon passed me the glass. "You can't use the chip for a few days, remember?" he said with an evil grin.
"You’re assuming I'd need a chip," I retorted. His smile just widened, and I narrowed my eyes at him.
"That's why I like Righteous's games," Nat said. "They're just . . . more."
Suck up. I grimaced in her direction, hoping she'd cool it.
"Thanks. We try." He reached into his jacket again and handed Nat a business card. "Maggie said you're interested in being a tester. Call this number and they'll organize for you to take our screening tests. If you pass those, you get an interview. I don't know if we have openings right now, but you can get on the wait list."
"Really?" Nat stared at the card like it was the holy grail. "That would be . . . ."
"Righteous?" I suggested sarcastically.
"Chill," Nat breathed, not noticing. "Thank you."
"You still have to pass all our evaluations," Damon said.
I relaxed a little. If Nat still had to earn her way in, then there was some time.
"Of course," Nat said. "But I'm thrilled to have the chance. Thank you."
"You're welcome. Maggie, I'll send a car to pick you up Monday to take you to the clinic for your follow-up. And I'll see you at work after that."
He didn't wait for me to say goodbye, just left. I reached for the pills. I figured between surgery, Damon, and Nat, I'd earned a painkiller or two.
The weekend crawled past. I alternated between sleepy from the painkillers and too alert from the same weird sense that the chip was feeding me additional energy. Nat, despite the fact that she spent most of her time in a Damon-induced daze, wandering around the apartment with a goofy grin, wouldn't hear of me actually doing anything. No, I was to rest and get better so I could do whatever her hero had hired me to do.
So I stayed on the sofa, watching bad movies and trying not to climb the walls. Nat did let me have my datapad but wouldn't let me use it for too long.
"It's the chip I'm supposed to avoid using," I protested after she'd confiscated it for the fourth time. "Not my brain."
"You're supposed to be resting. If you keep this, you'll work."
"I have rested," I said. It was true. I'd slept more over the last few days than I had for weeks, and the nightmares had mostly stayed away. Whatever the pills the doc had provided were, they seemed to work. "Besides, I don't have anything to work on. Riley's my only client at the moment, and I haven't started there." Couldn't start until my chip was good to go. I stared down at the surgical shield in frustration. If I hadn't been sure that Nat, Damon, and the surgeon would collectively kick my butt, I would've torn it off by now.
"All the more reason to relax now." Nat grinned at me as she coated her nails with iridescent polish.
"Forgive me if I don't find being held hostage on my couch relaxing," I grumbled.
"Be good, or no chocolate cake for dessert."
"You made cake?" The notion was cheering.
"I will. If you behave yourself."
"Blackmail."
"Absolutely. Now what do you want to watch next?"
She waved at the screen, but instead of neat squares of the program guide, the screen filled with a hissing fuzz of jumbled colors.
Nat swore. "What is up with everything?"
It had been one of those weekends. The lamp in my bedroom had blown not one but two bulbs in a row, our ancient syncaf machine had given up the ghost, and our net link had been temperamental all weekend. Now the screen.
Sara would've said the place needed cleansing. I figured it was just Murphy's law that everything would conspire against me when I was confined to quarters.
"Try rebooting," I suggested.
Nat nodded and picked up her datapad. Luckily, after an initial minute or so of irritated flickering, the screen came back to life. I settled back, hoping for something to distract me.
Monday morning, as advertised, there was a limo waiting out front to take me to my appointment. Less as advertised, Damon was inside.
"What are you doing here?" I asked. The car was already pulling away, so there was no chance to retreat to the safety of the sidewalk.
"Good morning." Damon held out an actual coffee mug. "Latte?"
I took the mug, unable to resist the rich smell wafting from it. Real coffee. "That didn't answer my question." I took another happy sniff, then sipped, trying not to moan as caffeine and sugar flowed over my tongue.
"I'm taking you to the clinic."
"Has anyone ever mentioned you're a control freak?" I muttered as I put the coffee down on the little tray table thingy in front of me and fastened my seat belt.
"I prefer to think of it as concerned for employee welfare."
I picked up the mug again and took another appreciative sip, trying to ignore how well he pulled off the suit jacket, T-shirt, and jeans look. "You escort all your employees to the doctor?"
"No. Just the annoying ones with pretty green eyes."
I choked on my coffee.
Pretty?
He thought my eyes were pretty?
What was I supposed to say to that? And how was I going to ignore him when he was complimenting me? I chose discretion as the better part of valor, pulling out my datapad and pretending to be absorbed by my newslink. The articles might as well have been written in Swahili; the only thing registering with my brain was the fact that this man, the one I was trying desperately not to let my hormones register as hot, thought I had pretty eyes.
It made me even more nervous than the imminent clinic visit.
Like I said, my mother liked her men tall and pretty. And in some ways, I was definitely my mother's daughter. Though I'd had years of carefully controlling that side of my nature, of only letting my libido loose on my terms. Damon Riley wasn't going to be the one to change that. Not if I had anything to say about it.
Dr. Barnard scanned my vitals and proceeded to gently prod my arm. "Any unusual pain?"
"No, I've been fine. My wrist has been sore but less each day."
He clucked his tongue. "Good. That sounds like everything is healing well. Let's test the chip, then."
I held out my arm and he sprayed the shield with something that made it peel away like shed skin. Thin, cool fingers closed around my forearm as he probed my wrist then scanned both the wrist and the chip with two separate scanners. He studied the read-outs in silence, then smiled at me. "That all looks good. You know how to engage it?" He gestured toward the armrest of the chair where the chip dock waited.
"I think so." I laid my arm gingerly against the dock. It connected with a soft click. I bit my lip.
"It'll be fine," Damon said calmly from the other side of the chair. For a moment I wished he'd hold my hand again. Instead, I curled the fingers of my free hand against my sweaty palm.
"Now," Dr. Barnard said, "when I start the simulation, you'll see a yellow door. I want you to think about walking to the door and opening it. Don't move at all. Just think. Your avatar should respond immediately."
I nodded, trying to breathe deeply as my pulse kicked up a notch or two. The hospital smells that immediately filled my nose didn't help.
I closed my eyes and leaned back. It's all going to be fine. It's all going to be fine. The voice in my head sounded convincing, but I couldn't stop the nervous hum in my stomach. What if I got the wobbles again? Would I lose the job? Would Damon think I was an idiot?
All you have to do is walk forward and open a damn door, I told myself firmly as the circling thoughts started to sound slightly hysterical.
"Ready?"
I focused on the colors playing inside my eyelids. "Yes." Between one heartbeat and the next, the colors blinked out.
:CONTACT:
A sensation like a cool breeze flowed over me, and then I stood in a small bare room with pale blue walls. The door, just as promised, glowed yellow about fifteen feet away from me. I hoped the color scheme didn't reflect a real room somewhere. The blue I could live with, but the yellow was more radioactive than soothing.
Sun-warmed air brushed my face, carrying the scents of spring and growing things rather than air-conditioning and antiseptic.
Smell. I was smelling something that wasn't real. Damon had said I was getting next-gen, and he'd apparently delivered. I sniffed deeply, but I couldn't smell anything like the hospital no matter how hard I tried.
Impressive.
But I didn't have time to think about how much code went into fooling your brain into smelling something that wasn't there. I had to complete the test.
The door. Radioactive yellow or not, I had to walk across to it.
Not sure exactly what to do other than what I'd usually do in a game, I imagined myself walking across the room. My avatar moved forward smoothly—or smoothly except for the small stumble when the hyper realistic sensation of walking registered. As far as my brain was concerned, I was walking across the room, carpet squishing gently under my feet.
Doubly impressive.
The quality of the illusion was even better than the game I'd tried. I reached the door and opened it. Just as I stepped through, I thought I heard someone call my name. Faintly, almost on the edge of hearing. But despite the softness, the tone sent a shiver down my back.
:OVERRIDE:
"Maggie."
This time the voice was completely normal, and with that one word, the room vanished and I was staring at the insides of my eyelids again.
"Everything okay?" Damon asked.
I opened my eyes and smiled through a lingering chill. "Yes. That was cool. Everything is so real."
"No wobbles? We called your name twice—"
Relief blew through me. It had been Damon talking to me. And probably just some weird transitional effect that made his voice sound strange. "I feel fine."
"Great." Damon nodded. "Do what you need to, Doc."
Dr. Barnard repeated his tests, told me I could stop taking the painkillers whenever I was ready, told me he’d send me more aftercare instructions, then pronounced me free to go. Damon whisked me back to Riley Arts, and before I had too much time to think, I was down in a cubicle with a couple of the Archangel programmers, getting set up to go code-trawling.
Things started well when I turned on the screen at my desk and it flickered and died.
"Fuck," I muttered under my breath. Jiggling the switch didn't restore the stupid thing to life. Way to make a first impression. Blowing up the equipment always went down well.
I stuck my head out of the cubicle. "My screen's dead," I said to Eli, the youngest of the programmers.
"That's weird. We got new gear a few weeks ago." He came around the low partition separating us and peered at the stubborn blackness of the glass, blond dreads falling across his face. "Let me try."
He did the same jiggle-and-flick routine I'd tried, then fiddled around with some of the buttons on the control panel. No response.
"Must be my magnetic personality," I joked.
Eli grinned, then pushed up the sleeve of his shirt to lay his wrist against the chip link on the desk. "Let me log a job. Then we'll move you to a new station." His face went curiously blank for a few seconds, but then he blinked and the personality was back behind his puppy brown eyes. "There, all done."
We gathered my things and I moved one desk down, holding my breath as I turned the system on. This time everything behaved itself.
Eli flipped open a panel in the cubicle wall and pulled out a lead that ended in a flexible cuff with the familiar chip dock. "You use the desk dock and I'll use this. Then I'll show you how to call up the code."
I nodded and laid my arm against the dock, nerves rising all over again.
"This is a clean copy of the code," Eli said, strapping the cuff around his wrist. "Dedicated server bank, isolated from the main systems. So we can't screw anything up."
I hadn't intended to screw anything up, but it was nice to know I couldn't. "You guys have been working on this for how long?"
"Couple of weeks. We haven't found anything though. Ready? I'll talk you through it. Close your eyes."
I did as instructed. "What happens if I keep them open?" I asked, suddenly curious.
"You'll see the data like an overlay of whatever you're looking at. It's kind of weird. And it gives most people a mother of a headache pretty fast. Plus it's almost guaranteed you'll fall over if you're standing."
"Eyes closed. Check."
"Okay, I'm starting the log-on sequence."
:CONTACT:
Multicolored flames danced across my vision, coalescing slowly into the Riley Arts logo floating above a keypad.
:GOOD MORNING, MAGGIE DIANA LACHLAN:
:CODE VERIFICATION REQUIRED:
"The system recognizes your chip, but we use our passwords as well. Punch it in."
Eli's real-life voice sounded too loud somehow. My hand flexed involuntarily, but I managed not to reach for the keypad physically. Instead I imagined typing in the sequence I'd been given. Evidently I got it right, because the Riley logo vanished, replaced by a clean white room with a giant screen covering the wall facing us. Neat rows of icons marched across the middle of the space.
Eli kept up a running commentary as he demonstrated each function and started explaining the various parts of the code. So much code. All the code. I'd never really appreciated just how much work went into these games. But the sheer volume was hard to ignore when you knew you were going to have to comb through it line by line.
"Any questions?" Eli shut down the last program and the screen cleared.
"Lots, but I think I've got the basics. Let me poke around a bit, and then I'll have more."
His avatar—pretty much him in real life, except his virtual hair was shorter and a more violent blonde that made me think he hadn't updated the skin for a while—cocked its head. "How does this work exactly? What you do?"
"I see if I can find a problem."
"One a team of us working for weeks hasn't been able to spot?"
Ah, I knew this conversation. Egos. They bruised easily. "Maybe not. But then we have a bigger problem."
"Such as?"
"If it's not the program, then the game can't be released until we figure out what exactly happened to the testers."
His expression changed as my words hit home. "Oh. I see. I'll leave you to it. Good hunting." He made a funny little bow with his hands pressed together, and then the avatar vanished, leaving me staring at the big screen.