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  Within a couple of minutes, he saw a guy in dirty safety-yellow all-weathers and a black old-fashioned ball cap plodding down the street toward him. He knew it was Matt, but he looked nothing like the Basha’s delivery guy who’d been at James’s door ten minutes earlier. His dirty-blond hair was hidden under the hat. More importantly, Matt moved differently now. As the delivery guy, he’d been quick, efficient, and professional—almost geeky—but this construction worker was dead-tired after a long day, barely picking his feet up off the ground. He even had a little hitch in his gait.

  In spite of the glibness of his approach, James had to hand it to Matt. He seemed good at his job. So far. He’d always thought Matt might end up at SOUF, since half his family had, but QESA must be working out for him all right.

  James picked up the other beer from the ground and handed it to Matt as he drew up to the fence. “Nice pants.”

  “You like ’em? I’m just borrowing ’em. Can we talk here?”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve swept it well enough. Within about one meter of this spot, we’re back in their range.”

  “No vid?” Matt looked a little surprised.

  James smirked. “They appear not to have that kind of budget.” A lot of things that the Blue could afford the RIA and other Red states couldn’t. There was almost no resource sharing in the Confederated Red States. Only some military entities and trade boards were nationalized under the Confederation agreements.

  “They either have a hell of a budget for housing parolees or you are one lucky bastard.” Matt was looking around at James’s little yard.

  “Yeah, they’re trying to win me over to the Dark Side. Or coddle me, ’cause they know I’m slowly cracking up.” Shit, he hadn’t meant to say that. He looked away from Matt.

  Matt leveled an intense stare at him. He could feel it hitting the side of his head. “So, on that note, let’s get you the hell out of here tonight.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Apparently I’ve been assigned a ‘caseworker’ and I have a meeting with her at 0845. I’m thinking it’d be smarter to wait and see her.”

  “What if meeting with her doesn’t mean any change in your surveillance? You could still have someone looking for you twenty minutes after we leave, wanting to do your daily check-in.”

  “I don’t think so. Apparently now I’ve got the same guy every day, for a while at least. I think he might stick to the same late-afternoon, early-evening time frame for another day, at least. Especially since I have this meeting.”

  “How long’s the meeting?”

  James shrugged. They continued to hash it out, discussing the best approach to the job. Between the beer and the talk, James started to slip back into that place he’d been eight years before, that brief period when Matt had been his friend. James had liked him, so much he was afraid to let himself admit it. It had almost been a relief when he’d caught Steve and Matt together. It meant James hadn’t been forced to face something he wasn’t ready for. Something he didn’t fully face until five years later, when he first got his implant.

  “So, whadya think?” Matt was looking at him, clear blue eyes looking into his. James let his brain come back into the present moment.

  “Sorry.” he cleared his throat. “What do I think about…?”

  Matt gave him another penetrating look. “About me staying in the Brick-and-Mortar Inn tonight, and I’ll stick around until you return from your appointment. James, we gotta get you outta here, buddy,” he added softly. Almost like he cared about him.

  James was pretty sure he didn’t deserve any caring from Matt, but he wanted it. He cleared his throat again. “Yeah, I gotta get my head screwed on straight.” Then he decided to share something that was really starting to bug him. “I can’t feel you.” Matt gave him a slightly worried look. “I mean in my head. Your brain waves or whatever.”

  “You said not everyone put them out there.”

  “Well, most people do, and you did at first. But sometime this afternoon, it’s like you stopped somehow.”

  Matt was silent a minute. “How about now?”

  Suddenly, James could feel Matt there, pushing his thoughts out toward him. “Yeah, now I can.” James looked at him questioningly.

  Matt seemed pleased with himself. “I was trying not to let you pick up on them, earlier.”

  “Why?” James had no reason or right, but he felt a little bit hurt.

  “I just figured it must be annoying for you, always picking up brain waves. Thought you might like some quiet.” He shrugged.

  James blinked hard a couple of times. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I do like it. Thank you.”

  Matt shrugged and turned the conversation back to the business of getting James the hell out of Idaho.

  They worked out the plans for “what if” and Matt finished his beer, crumpled the pouch, and said good night. James sat there for another hour, lost in thought. Mostly about “what if.”

  KANDY MELORE was a sharp, small-featured, angry little woman. And a homophobe. She made a point of telling James—frequently—how she tried not to let her personal views affect her treatment of her clients.

  The woman was a grade-A prime bitch. He could feel her intent to needle him. Quickly followed by irritation when he appeared not to notice.

  Mostly, James made no response to her unless he had to. It was a trick he had perfected back in childhood, when simply breathing around his father was guaranteed to irritate him. In school, he’d been quiet, but not shy. He just didn’t speak unless he needed to. He’d learned at a young age that things were better that way.

  In adulthood, James started talking more, sharing things that weren’t strictly necessary. Once he had the implant and he could feel people’s bewilderment and confusion over his silence, he became much more open.

  But silence was always a useful tool, and an innate skill for James.

  “Well, James.” Ms. Melore gave him a toothy, insincere smile. “We’re almost done here. Thank you so much for being patient with me.” She paused, waiting for a response. James blinked. “There’s just one more little matter. It appears your chip is giving us some trouble.”

  James’s heart sped up, just a little. He cocked his head at Melore. She let her frustration at his reaction color her tone. “We’re going to have to schedule you for recoding.”

  Why the hell couldn’t they just recode while he was here?

  “Tomorrow morning at 0800, you’ll need to report to the POW facility in downtown, and they’ll prep you for the procedure. It should only take a few minutes.”

  Clearly not just a recoding as James understood it. A suspicion of what was really going on began to form. He needed more info. “Malfunction?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise; it was his first multisyllabic word since “Hello.” James looked her in the eye, waiting for the answer.

  Melore gave a little cough. “Yes. Apparently a manufacturing defect. You’ll be receiving a new chip.”

  James almost flinched. Getting the chip embedded in his femur sucked. When the nano packet broke apart and spread through the marrow it hurt like a sonofabitch. “One that was ignored for a month?”

  She gave him her toothy smile. “I’m afraid that’s information I can’t share with you, James.” Her pleasure at his responsiveness almost kept him from speaking again, but he needed to know.

  Hoping that what he’d done last night was real, he said, “I want to know,” and gave Melore a mental push, trying to force the answer out of her mouth. He could feel it hovering right there, and if he pushed it just like that….

  “It stopped working.” She snapped her mouth shut, flushing. Then the blood drained from her face. “How did you do that?” she hissed. Her face twisted into a pinched-mouth witch’s mask.

  James raised an eyebrow. He could feel the rage coming off her in waves. He considered how pissed she could get, and what the consequences would be. “I didn’t do anything, Ms. Melore.” He tried something new, pushing a
little sincerity her way.

  He really needed it to work.

  Kandy Melore got a slightly dazed look on her face, staring somewhat blankly at James. Finally she cleared her throat. “I believe that’s all, James. Report to the POW clinic at 0800 sharp tomorrow morning. I’ll see you at this time next week, as well.” She turned to her embedded datascreen, dismissing him from her mind. Or trying to appear to.

  Well, that was interesting.

  Chapter 5

  MATT got Andry again on vid in the morning, but insisted on talking to Lance this time. Andry then lurked behind Lance’s shoulder, sulking. “You’re going to make a hell of an agent,” Matt said. Andry scowled, but then made an effort to blank his expression and stand straighter.

  God, you’d think he was eight and not eighteen most of the time.

  “What’s up, Matt?” Grampa smiled at him over his plate of eggs.

  “James is Psi-force, Lance.”

  Lance’s eyes widened a little. “Ayala say anything about needing to stay?”

  “He says it’s not some kind of down-low black op and he’s ready to go. There’s a complication. I won’t go into it now, but it’s need-to-know and I needed to know.” Even if he didn’t technically have that clearance.

  Lance’s eyebrows went up. Andry perked up a little behind him. But Lance just asked for his current status.

  “In Boise, heading out about 0945 if everything goes well. I’ll check in at 1930. Ayala wants to go with the backup route.”

  “Understood.” Lance signed off.

  James showed up—coming through the door of the empty supply room like it was unlocked—at 1007. Matt saw James’s smirk at his surprise, and it reminded him to shield his thoughts.

  But Matt had rigged that door.

  “I don’t get how you do that.” James kept his voice low.

  “What?” Matt asked, inspecting the locking mechanism. “I can’t figure out how you did this.”

  “I’m SOUF. How do you just turn off your brain waves like that?”

  “I’ll tell you if you show me how to do that with the lock.”

  “Fine, but not right now. I wanna get out of here. I think we need to leave now.”

  Matt looked up at the suddenly sharp note in James’s voice. “Okay. Let’s go camping.” He saved his questions until after they’d silently crept from the room—the store below was open, now—and made it to the alley behind the building.

  James beat him to it. “Tell me how you did that, turned it off like that.”

  “I don’t really know. I just think about it. Like I think: ‘okay, stop broadcasting to James,’ and I do. I can turn it on again the same way. Or if I haven’t been around you for a while. Maybe it sort of wears off. You can tell me if you pick me up again. What camping gear do you have?”

  “Stuff any hunter would have. I started buying it as soon as I got out. Hunting’s a fucking religion here, so they weren’t going to stop me.”

  “They didn’t let you buy a rifle?” No way.

  James gave him a sardonic look. “This is the Red, dude. I couldn’t get anything much, but I got an old projectile shotgun on the underground arms market.”

  “No fucking way.” Matt was incredulous.

  “Way. These people are serious about the right to bear arms.”

  “These people are dumbasses.”

  James gave his trademark snort. “Also have some digi-camo, hunter’s camo—no safety colors—and random other things. No food, no shelter except my sleeping bag.”

  “The digi-camo could save our asses.”

  “Money talks even if you have a pink triangle on your chest. And it helps when you know how bad your seller wants it.”

  Matt headed out. James didn’t ask any questions, just followed Matt a klick or so through quiet neighborhoods, until they came to an ancient, decrepit bungalow. After pointing it out, they walked past, and James waited at a nearby coffee kiosk.

  JAMES watched Matt go to the bungalow and knock on the door. A sunny woman in her mid-thirties followed him over to James.

  “Hi, James. I’m Lauryl,” she said in a smooth, low voice. He could read her agenda clearly: complete devotion to Blue resistance.

  “This is my friend Alys’s kiosk. Why don’t we step inside?”

  Matt just raised an eyebrow and dipped his head toward the kiosk. James raised an eyebrow back and followed her inside, Matt crowding in behind.

  “You’re very quiet, Matt,” Lauryl commented.

  He smiled. “This guy doesn’t need the regular reassurances.” He started digging in his pack.

  It occurred to James that he was being very trusting. He wouldn’t normally follow anyone this blindly. His gut told him to go for it, and his implant sensed no threat. It hadn’t been wrong so far. He shrugged and smiled a little sheepishly at Lauryl.

  Matt crouched down and planted his right leg in front of him. James watched him unseal the side seam of his all-weathers over the calf. He was trying to puzzle it out when Matt pressed hard on his calf muscle, and then the whole thing just slid down. “Holy shit!”

  Matt grinned up at him. “Never seen that before, huh?” He went back to removing various devices from his hollow leg. A hollow, fake leg, with very convincing skin covering it.

  “Th’fuck, Matt?” It wasn’t the fake leg; it was that Matt had it. “What happened?”

  “Old-tech landmine in New Mexico. About four years ago. This is my super-fancy secret agent prosthesis, aka tech-pantry.”

  James was speechless. Matt would have been what? Nineteen? Way too fucking young to lose a leg. It happened, he knew it. He just didn’t want it happening to anyone he knew. Or maybe to Matt.

  James tried to choke out an appropriate response. “Guess it could have been worse.” He shrugged awkwardly. “Could have been an atomizer mine.” God, what a lame thing to say. He wanted to kick himself. Maybe he could borrow Matt’s leg to do it.

  “I tell myself that every morning after I’ve slept on the ground.”

  “Guess I’ll be telling you this trip,” James mumbled. Lame. Lame, lame, lame, lame-o.

  “Here we go.” Matt handed a tiny flat case and a small recoder up to Lauryl. James had forgotten she was there, she was so still, mentally and physically. She nodded and waited for Matt to put himself back together.

  “When’s your next check-in?” Lauryl turned to James.

  “Gut feeling? I think I’m good until tomorrow at 0800. But we have to talk.”

  Matt stood up, stomping his leg to get his pant leg to settle around his boot. “Always something, isn’t it?”

  “The meeting this morning. My new ‘caseworker’ said my chip is malfunctioning. Supposed to go in at 0800 and get a whole new one.”

  Matt whistled. “That’d be a bitch.” He took the recoder from Lauryl and read James’s chip. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “It’s tracking. They’re either lying to you and putting something else in, or it’s only malfunctioning part of the time.”

  Then it clicked for James. “Um, Lauryl, can you wait outside for us?” She just nodded and left, no questions asked.

  James concentrated a moment. Then he looked at Matt. “Try it now.”

  Matt knelt down to get a clearer reading from the higher nano concentration in James’s femur, although they should have circulated all through his bloodstream.

  “Fuck me running,” Matt said softly. “It’s completely wacko, now.” He was staring intently at the recoder. Then he suddenly looked up at James. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re messing with it.”

  James nodded, struck mute by Matt’s position. He was on his knees in front of him, head level with his dick. His blue eyes looked straight into James’s.

  Fuuuuuuck. Instant wood.

  Matt glanced at the recoder again. “This’s weird, James. It’s reading like you’re doing something aerobic. Like having sex,” he joked then looked up again. Except his eyes got caught by the growing bulge in J
ames’s camos.

  James bet that explained things for him.

  Matt blushed a little, but he also grinned. “Feel a little differently about me than in high school?” He looked up at James. Through his lashes. It was a practiced, seductive look. And it was totally successful.

  James could feel his face flush, his lips part. Without thinking, he licked them.

  Matt’s mental barrier against James started to slip.

  Seemed he felt differently than in high school too. “Yeah,” James answered roughly.

  James didn’t try to hide anything. His reaction was all there for Matt to see. James’s eyes followed Matt’s bobbing Adam’s apple. He glanced farther down, and could see a bulge in Matt’s crotch.

  Shit. James knew he shouldn’t just stand here. He should step back. But he didn’t.

  James could tell Matt intended to stand up and end the situation. But he didn’t. He didn’t really want to. He knelt in front of James, pupils wide, mouth slightly open. Matt wanted to put his mouth on James—he could all but see the mental image.

  James gave Matt that little mental nudge he’d been perfecting. The big head was no longer in charge.

  Matt leaned forward, lips parting. God it was hot to see him on his knees, ready to suck James’s cock. James groaned when he felt Matt’s hot breath through his camos.

  Matt flinched back at the noise and jerked his eyes up to James’s.

  Oh.

  Fuck.

  James closed his eyes and swallowed, blood draining from his face. He was such a fucking prick. “Dude, sorry. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean—”

  “Did you make me do that?”

  James paused then opened his eyes. “Kinda?”

  Matt growled and punched his thigh. Not hard, but James flinched. “How much?”

  “How much what?”

  “How much did you make me feel?”

  “Um.” James swallowed again. “I can’t make you do anything you aren’t already thinking about.” I don’t think. “I just pick up what’s in the forefront of your mind and, uh…,” he wiggled his fingers at Matt’s head, “nudge you a little.”