“Yes, well, um, I’m here to put an end to your, um, evil ways. And stuff.”
He turned around and gaped at her. Terrance Filit was the stereotypical nerd—thick glasses, Star Trek T-shirt, faded jeans, skinny bod—but he had the biggest, bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Paul Newman eyes. Or creepy-kid-from-Godsend eyes, if you wanted to get really picky…
“Are you looking for my mom?” he asked, dazzled.
She smiled. Luckily, she’d taken the time to do some red lowlights in contrast with her white blond strands. The Boss could say what he wanted, but he could never say she’d gone on assignment not looking her best. “No, I passed her on the way out. I was sent here from an elite government agency to…never mind, it sounds lame even before I say it out loud.”
“God, you’re really tall.”
“Thanks.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked stern. “Look, you gotta quit with the viruses, okay? I mean, a couple of them were funny, but people can’t work. Think if you came home and your computer was totally on the fritz. It would, like, totally disrupt your life.”
“I’d love to come home and find my computer was stuffed with porn,” he confessed. “It’s better than—” Terry reddened and looked away. “Never mind.”
Neutralize him, the Boss said in her head. Creepy. That better not be her chip. If he had access to her chip, she was kicking his ass severe.
He’d love to come home and find his computer stuffed with porn?
The viruses were all pornographic in nature…if your hard drive got infected, it pulled all sorts of porn from the Web and dumped it into your drive. Or, worse, had everyone in your e-mail box e-mail you porn. It was kind of funny, just the sort of thing a kid—a boy—would find amusing.
A boy so focused on porn because he had no experience with the real thing, and as a result was massively curious as well as massively—
She unbuttoned her coat. “Mind if I stay a few minutes?”
“Are you going to shoot me?” he gasped.
“No.”
Thirty-six seconds later
“Wow!” Terry cried. “That was just so totally wow!”
“You’re uh, eighteen, right?” I didn’t just commit statutory rape, right?
“Nineteen in June. Um. That was so…I gotta get in the Darth chat room and tell all the guys!”
“Yes, yes. Now, listen. You can’t design any more of these—”
“Who wants to do that now?” he said impatiently, waving at his computer and looking generally disgusted. “I’ve got other stuff to worry about. You’ve—you’ve opened up a whole new world for me! I’ll never design another virus again!”
That sure sounded like neutralized to her. Good ’nuf. “Alrighty, then,” she said, slipping into her panties, leggings, bra, and cashmere turtleneck. She pulled on her wool socks and stepped into her boots. “Make sure you keep your word, or I’ll have to come back and, um, neutralize you again.”
He nearly fell off the couch they’d dallied on. “Really?”
“Shut up, Terry,” she said kindly, and shrugged into her coat and walked out.
Chapter 8
“You—you—you—you—you—”
Caitlyn studied her nails and decided she could go one more day without a touch-up. “Me—me—me—me—me what? Can you hurry this up, please? I’ve got to be at Mag in another half hour.”
“He’s not dead,” the Boss growled.
“Well, he was sleepy when I left…”
He cursed her, but since she was raised by an alcoholic Air Force sergeant, she was used to it, and could barely conceal a yawn. “And now I’m done, right? Right. And by the way, it was a major creep-out to have your driver bring me here. Like you don’t have my home address? So, I’ll—”
“We’ll be in touch,” he interrupted. “But you should leave—before I shoot you in the head.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
He balled up an interdepartmental memo and took a bite out of it, then spat the paper wad into his wastebasket. What a revolting habit, she thought, amazed.
“Because I’m really annoyed that you didn’t kill that kid,” he snapped.
“No, why will you be in touch?”
“Oh, you know. This and that.” He grinned, showing flecks of paper on his teeth. “Maybe you’ll need a tune-up.”
“One job, remember?”
“I never forget anything.”
“Well, thanks to you guys,” she said bitterly, “now neither do I.”
“You just never know what may come up,” he went on cheerfully. A cheerfully psychotic asshole in charge of a top-secret government facility. Oh, this was gonna be one for the journal. “Nobody can predict the future, you know. Not even you, sunshine.”
“Do not call me sunshine. And could you go back to yelling? I find it less creepy than your fake ‘we all get along great’ thing.”
“And you’re getting only half your salary for this one,” he added, “since Terrance Filit is still alive.”
“Oh, I’m getting paid? Right.” She mulled that one over for a minute. Drawing a check for this crap was something she hadn’t considered. Of course, government salary. How great could it be? But still. The bennies were probably pretty good. “This is my cue to say Keep your dirty money, except my rent is late.”
“Half,” he said again, looking meaner than ever. “And the next time I send you to neutralize somebody, make sure they go to sleep dead, okay?”
“I have no idea what that means, but fortunately, there won’t be a next time. Right? Right. Besides, if you don’t quit bugging me, I’m going to tell.”
“Tell?” He eyed the crumpled-up memo, then threw the whole thing in the garbage without eating any more of it, to her relief. “As in tattle? You’re going to tattle on the O.S.F.?”
He was so sneery about it, she hesitated before saying, “That’s right. I’ll tell everyone what you guys did to me. Without my permission, I might add. I mean, come on. Monitoring police bands and hospital radios? And scooping up the first almost-dead person you find and infecting her with God-knows-what? Who does that?”
“We do,” he said. “Check our charter.”
“I’ll—I’ll call a press conference and—and you’ll be toast.” As if she had the slightest idea how to call a press conference. Maybe she’d just take a jaunt down to the Star Tribune offices and do a demonstration for them. Then they would call the press conference. Right? Right.
The Boss was laughing at her. His eyebrows had smoothed out, but his face was still an alarming shade of brick. “Tell!” he gasped, waving at her. “Tell!”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell whomever you want. Tell Stacy. Tell your mailman. Tell your landlord. Tell the president, that fucking moron. We don’t care.”
“Well, why don’t you?” she asked, nettled.
“Caitlyn, dear child—”
“Do not call me that.”
“—what would they do? Even if they believed you? Do you think Stacy would tell the world even if she had the faintest idea how? Do you think your mailman gives a ripe shit? I’ve