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Even without a chip in my brain, some things I would never forget—the corruption beneath Kathryn Jodane’s polished smile, kissing Tempest in the dunes, and being ordered to kill her. Foreseeing the command hadn’t prepared me for it.
Run, Tempest, run! How many times had I warned her? It was too late now.
The RTC entered the vehicle elevator, rose to street level, and exited the hotel complex. I stretched my arm across the seat back, and she scooted away from me. She had a strong enough survival instinct to avoid me, but not so much to have escaped when she should have.
I glanced at my duffle before returning my scrutiny to her. I must have been blind to view her as plain. She was way too pretty for my peace of mind. Today, she wore a tan tunic and dark-brown leggings, comfortable and practical attire for traveling. Was there scarlet lace underneath?
Fuck.
The fresh scent of lemon shampoo wafted off the soft brunette waves curling around her shoulders. She appeared cool and collected, but an agitated pulse throbbed in her slender neck. I didn’t need the items in the bag or the weapon in the holster under my jacket to kill her. I could snap her neck with my bare hands.
There were so many ways to kill a person. The methods—blaster fire, strangulation, blunt force, electrocution, stabbing, fatal injection—depended on the desired outcome. Should the death look like an unfortunate accident, a tragic suicide, or a homicide? Did you need to make an example of the victim and send a message? Or should the victim quietly go missing? A quick, merciful demise? Or should the victim suffer?
You should have run, Tempest, and barring that, you should have trusted me.
A paradox. She herself had pointed out the contradiction of threatening her while urging her to trust me.
City-center, a faded but still legible sign identified a dune area as a park. Ripples of sand buried benches and the steps leading to a gazebo. “There’s a lot more sand in the park today,” she commented.
“You’ve been to the park?” I feigned ignorance. I knew everywhere she’d been due to the tracker on her comm device. The solar and wind farms and Geo-Tech made sense, but why the park? It was a sand pit. “Why? Not much to see here.” Had this been a rendezvous point? In hindsight, maybe I should have followed her.
She met my gaze and shrugged. “I didn’t know that until I saw it.”
“You met someone,” I said with conviction.
“Who was there to meet? It was my first day on Sajave.” The lie tripped off her pursed lips, but instead of focusing on the falsehood, I stared at her mouth, remembering the softness, the hitch and fragrance of her breath, her incredible taste, her seductive low moans. I’d never expected she’d kiss me back—I hadn’t intended to kiss her. I’d crossed a line. I didn’t mix work with pleasure. I found little pleasure in my work. Then again, there’d been little pleasure in anything since I’d become a cyborg.
Until meeting Tempest. Damn, she complicated matters.
Our RTC joined the throng waiting to exit. Three hovercrafts idled ahead of us, several others lined up behind us. The gates opened, and, one by one, with a pause in between, the RTCs rolled out. As soon as we cleared the city walls, our hovercraft lifted up and zipped eastward over the dunes.
I’d failed to factor Tempest into the equation. After being emotionally dead, to experience any feeling, let alone pleasure and desire, proved a near-irresistible temptation. How did a starving man pass up a buffet?
But I had to. I had to fulfill my assignment. I had to keep my mind on the job and my dick in my pants. Getting her out of my system by tumbling her was not an option. Just because she’d kissed me didn’t mean she would get hot and sweaty in the sheets. The whole situation was fucked up enough.
RTC traffic between Città and the eastern cities couldn’t compare to rush hour of any Earth metropolis, but enough vehicles zipped back and forth to be...intrusive. Via wireless, I accessed the vehicle’s NAV system and rerouted our destination. There was no need for her to go to Stadt. Not now, not ever. Not anymore.
As our craft veered away from the flight path she’d set, the number of RTCs grew fewer and fewer until ours was the only vehicle in the dunes. Under a cloudless cyan canopy, undulating hills of snow-white sand stretched to the horizon. Inside the vehicle, the awkwardness was as thick as clouded air in a dust storm. Feigning interest in the landscape, we stared out the windows.
The mesmerizing monotony of the dunes could lull a person to sleep. Needing to stay alert, I signaled my adrenal gland to release a jolt of epinephrine.
Tempest didn’t seem to be affected by the hypnotic scenery. Bottom lip caught between her teeth, she frowned.
“Penny for your thoughts,” I said, using an old idiom.
Her eyes glinted with a trace of amusement. “A penny? You must not be very interested in what I’m thinking.”
On the contrary, I’d become obsessed with everything about her. “Name your price, then.”
Her gaze settled on my mouth, and it was like being kicked in the chest. A kiss? Was that her price? Heat rushed to my groin. No more complications. No more.
She met my eyes with a challenge. “What if my price is that I land this RTC, you get out, and I continue on alone?”
“You would maroon me in the dunes?” I recalled my orders. A hovercraft crash in the middle of nowhere...a plausible accident.
Her lips compressed mulishly before defiance collapsed with a slump of her shoulders. “No, I couldn’t do that to my worst enemy. I guess I lack the killer instinct.” She turned her attention out the window again. “I was thinking there’s a lot of...sand out there.”
“Sajave is covered with it,” I agreed.
“Yes, yes, it is.” There was the tiniest hitch in her voice.
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
She shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know where you get that. I’m making an observation.”
“I assume you’ve been in contact with the president?” I probed, curious. I knew how my conversation with the president had gone.
“Yes.”
“How did it go?”
“Great. Better than I expected. I reassured her I had the situation under control. She seemed quite satisfied.”
Tempest, Tempest, Tempest. Accustomed to being armed, I hardly noticed the weight of my blaster under my jacket, but all of a sudden it felt heavy. “Have you considered resigning?”
“No! Of course, not.” Her gaze slid away from my face.
“Never?”
She shifted on the seat. “Stressful days don’t count.”
I let out a bark of humorless laughter. “Aren’t they all stressful?”
“Working for any president is not a nine-to-fiver. I wish to serve for as long as I can be of use.”
Unfortunately, she had outlived her usefulness.
Movement outside drew my attention. A small dust devil swirled. Growing in size, it bounced over the ripples and then zipped across the dunes. Another one formed and chased after it. The dust devils appeared to frolic. “The sand almost seems alive,” I commented.
She coughed and then pointed out the opposite window. “More dust devils.”
A half dozen not-so-tiny white tornadoes had formed. They acted less playful than the others.
I used the keypad to slow the RTC.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Getting a closer look.” I squinted out the window. Soaring over the dunes created an illusion the sand moved instead of the vehicle. As I slowed the hovercraft, sand engulfed the vehicle in a swirl. Blowback from the RTC?
I landed the RTC and cut the power.
A rain of sand sprayed the vehicle. I studied the undulations. Not an optical illusion. The sand flowed like a slow-moving river.
“It’s moving!” Tempest widened her eyes.
“A dust storm is about to hit,” I said.
Splat! Splat! Sand pelted the RTC.
“We have to get out here!” She fired up the RTC, and we took off. “Geo-Tech warned me about sandstorms, to seek shelter.” She raked a hand through her hair. “Maybe we should go back to Città.”
Behind us, I spotted a massive white cloud headed our direction. Wirelessly, I hacked the vehicle’s GPS and operating system to scope out our precise location and the RTC’s capabilities. “If we reverse, we’ll fly into the storm.”
I rerouted us to the nearest way station then shifted auxiliary power to the main thrusters. The RTC took off like a bat out of hell.
She gripped the seat. “What did you do?”
“I boosted our velocity in hopes we can outrun the storm.” The splatters had stopped, but small dust devils were spinning all around us, and, behind us, the wall of white had gotten broader, taller, angrier.
“But how? You never touched the controls.”
“I’m a cyborg. I have ways,” I said.
