Spectre of Intention Page 8

  “No!”

  “It’s okay, Ashley. I’m just going to…”

  Lightning fast, he seized me. My body went rigid; my mind went blank. A shuddering convulsion racked my frame as my body reacted to the rapid transition. Then slowly my body settled, relaxed into the pillows, into his hands as he pulled me to him. He wiped my face with his shirt sleeve and settled my empty form against his chest.

  He kept that vise-grip on my mind as he rocked me, murmuring quieting nonsense. From somewhere beyond my battered body, beyond the endless battlefield of my mind, I watch him hold me, felt his lips move against my forehead, heard him chanting.

  “Shh, it’s okay. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I never knew that’s how you felt. How could I have not known? You hated my Ashley. How could anyone hate my Ashley? Oh, god.”

  So far away, a curiosity and nothing more. It was so good to float here, just me, no more Kaitlin, no more Ashley. Just me and that sad, confused man down there.

  “I have to go. I can’t leave you like this. God, please don’t hate me. I couldn’t let you hurt so bad. I’m going to help you sleep. I’ll stay with you just until you sleep.”

  No need for sleep. Sleep was reality. Reality was bad. Here was just fine. Very, very fine.

  But the man could coax blood from stone. So slowly he transformed his hold on my mind from rigid entrapment to a soothing, so soothing embrace. That gentleness was wonderfully alluring, but my away was better…far, far away. Patiently, he stroked my hair, stroked my face, rocking me.

  At the edge of my awareness I saw an image, heard a sound. His voice, my face—younger, innocently younger. That first fateful train ride. It’s misting outside the tinted window. He leans over and asks me if I want to play hooky. I look up from my workpad, just a kid with bright eyes and a pretty smile. And he knows. This is the one.

  Later.

  The first time at his one-room apartment. Just a little bit nervous, embarrassed about the peeling paint and lack of furniture. He answers the door and there I am standing in front of him with the prettiest spring dress with tiny blue flowers and my wild brown hair is tamed into a low bun at the back of my neck and he thinks I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. And a perfect peace settles over him.

  Later.

  Meeting my mom. He’s thinking the house is so tiny and old, but it has been well cared for. He pulls open the warped screen door with its rough blue paint. Then my mom opens the inside door to welcome him. I step up beside her and give him a reassuring smile. All he can think is that this is how beautiful, how sweet his Ashley will be as we grow old together.

  Slowly, the memories become my own. Slowly, I settle the sheets more comfortably around me. Slowly, the memories become dreams.

  “Wow, somebody needs to get laid.”

  I snarled at Gerard through the blue plastic of the interview booth wall. “Just give me the goddamn screwdriver and you hold this stupid piece of shit.”

  Jessie’s massive presence grew closer, larger behind me.

  “Why don’t I hold the ‘stupid piece of shit’? Kaitlin, I believe Paula has the updates to the software now. Why don’t you help her set up her testing equipment?”

  Kaitlin tried to keep me from glaring. She reminded me that it was not only unprofessional, but unfair. Demonstrating amazing restraint, I placed the side wall of the interview booth carefully into Jessie’s waiting hands. Let him worry about lining up six screw holes the size of goddamn pin heads.

  The boys’ relief blew over me as I walked away.

  On the other hand, Paula eyed me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Do I need to get out my metal neck brace?”

  Grimacing, I laughed.

  “I think Gerard’s jugular will hold me for a while. You should be safe. India and Andres got back with your changes pretty fast. Here, give me the box knife. Your stuff is in box three.”

  Paula handed me the knife. “How the heck do you remember that?”

  “Useless trivia is my specialty.”

  I heaved the box onto the remaining conference table. Gerard had disassembled the conference table from the second room and propped its parts against the wall on this side of the room, leaving precious little space to work in over here. I sliced open the box and together we got to work on unwrapping the pieces and parts of her scanner.

  Really, her scanner was just a mini, portable version of the interview booth. She used it to calibrate the software for the larger machine.

  “I reread your report last night.”

  “All because you forgot one little statistic?”

  “It was embarrassing. Anyway, I found another little statistic. One that gave me nightmares.”

  “And what was that?”

  “That there are over 900 crew and staff on this boat.”

  “Ah,” I looked down at the arrangement of camera parts we had created on the table. “You realize that is over 2,000 total permanent residents, including spouses and children?”

  Paula froze in the process of screwing one of her three tiny cameras onto its tripod.

  “Oh, god. I did not make that connection.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just setting up for that many interviews would take six months.”

  “Well, they all have their mass transit IDs.”

  Paula waved that idea aside as she spread the legs on the final tripod. She set a workpad on a stand in front of me and locked her own pad into the privacy screen.

  “Mass transit IDs are as easy to fake as drivers’ licenses.”

  “Not that easy. And that part we can catch them at with a couple of extra cross checks.”

  Paula pursed her lips. “Maybe. I’ll have to think about it. It’s not my preference. I prefer being familiar with the data before I begin the interview.”

  In the chair across the corner from me, she settled down to bring the system online. Behind me I heard a crash and the whine of the power drill went silent.

  “Who designed this fucking piece of shit anyway?” Gerard demanded.

  “That would be you,” I replied under my breath.

  Paula just smiled.

  My return smile was grim. That’s right, banter, snarl, curse. Forget that the pole and the chair had vanished. Forget that shattered glass sprinkled the carpet next to my bed. Forget that a silk scarf lay pooled by the closet door. Forget that my body was so emotionally battered that just sitting in this chair made me ache.

  “Okay,” Paula said.

  I looked up. Paula tilted her head, then shot me a woeful smile.

  “Since you are in such a delightful mood this morning, I think we’d better take a few baseline scans before we get started.”

  I laughed despite myself. As the screen in front of me flickered to life, though, I started to wonder if I could handle more emotional manipulation so soon. That creeping feeling that started drilling up through my arms and legs told me no. The second I noticed it, I heard Ashley’s fainting chant in the back of my head, “Let’s get out of here. Gotta go. Let’s get out of here. Gotta go….”

  I jumped out of the chair.

  “You know what? I’m always the one to sit for this. How are you ever going to know if that thing really works if it only tastes one brand of emotion every time? Gerard, since you are obviously incapable of handling a screwdriver, why don’t you come sit for Paula this time? Take a little break.”

  Gerard jumped up from the floor and stretched his back.

  “Hell, you wanna trade wrestling with Big Blue for sitting around pulling faces at stupid video clips, be my guest.”

  Just as I reached out to take the power drill from him, Jessie grabbed Gerard’s shoulder.

  “That’s not how this works.”

  I saw, felt, the significant look pass between them. There was just enough of Stephan left in my head to see the faint image of Jessie trying to shut Gerard up and the barely there counter-image of Gerard wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. What the hell was that suppose
d to mean?

  Kaitlin turned me around before anyone could recognize my reaction and dropped me back into the chair.

  Paula sighed. I heard the faintest mutter, “…should put you all in time-out…” and then she resumed her preparations.

  “Okay, for three of these tell me what you see. For one of them, lie to me.”

  I looked at the screen.

  “I see a little knoll with the trunk of a fallen tree lying at the base of a pine and a…maybe a female elk tucked in the cranny they make.”

  Next picture.

  “I see a rocky mountain, lots of moss, and a waterfall tumbling down the side of it.”

  “This is what I’m paying you guys the big bucks for?”

  I looked up.

  Cam.

  He grinned. “Just thought I would see how the prisoners were doing.”

  He walked in, looking like sunshine, feeling like energy that had taken human form. That first layer of ache melted away from my flesh. Automatically, I rose in response and walked over to him.

  “Come on in. We’re still digging through boxes, but there’s a few toys laying around that you might find interesting.”

  I drew him in through the narrow valley between the two tables. Ashley was so easy to ignore in that moment: it was as if she had vanished from me altogether.

  Paula spared him a nod as he passed by, but Jessie and Gerard laid down their tools to greet him.

  “Hey, you’re Gerard O’Connell, right?”

  The two men shook hands.

  “That’s right. Camden Glaswell?”

  “Yes, sir. Good to meet you. And Jessie, how are you this afternoon?”

  “Is it really afternoon already?”

  “To the minute. So, what have we got here?”

  I gestured to the mangled mass of plastic and metal. “We call this Plastics and Metals, Two. We thought it would make an elegant addition to your décor, welcoming guests in the check-in foyer when they first arrive on board.”

  Cam eyed it thoughtfully, then nodded.

  “Stunning, truly stunning.”

  I laughed and caught Gerard’s sidelong look at my abrupt change of humor. Screw him and his piece of crap cabin door security. Not fair, Kaitlin reminded me.

  “It’s the interview booth…eventually. Once we’ve got it together, it will have the body language sensors. That section over there,” Jessie pointed to the blank console panel next in line for installation, “has all the vitals monitoring and then the facial cameras are in the upper side panels and that overhead panel over there.” Jessie gestured to the curved sheet of metal studded with lights and lenses that I had propped in the corner to keep it from getting kicked.

  In full presidential mode now, Jessie walked Cam back over to where Paula tapped at her workpad, probably resetting her baseline test.

  “Paula, here, is working on the brains for the micro-expressions detector part of the booth. She just got some updates in and she’s testing them. Before she inflicts them on the rest of us.”

  Cam grinned like a kid in the candy store, running his finger over the spherical case of one of Paula’s cameras.

  “So, can you try it on me?”

  Paula smiled quietly.

  “Not yet. This system will only check my suppositions against the database, so I can update it based on the test subject responses I collect. Once we get it installed in the booth, then you can lie to your heart’s content.”

  “You be sure to call me. I want to be first in line to give that thing a try.”

  “Gonna try to beat the system?” Gerard asked.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Lie,” Paula shot back.

  Cam raised his eyebrows at her, then burst out laughing.

  “I can see you guys sitting around the bar after work, telling these colossal stories and then everybody else sitting there say, ‘Lie,’ ‘Truth,’ ‘Lie.’ That’s great.”

  Cam turned his joke toward me. That little extra light switched on in those eyes. That little extra pull in my stomach grew deeper, warmer. Kaitlin gave him a slow smile, then turned to Paula before it could get too obvious.

  “Yeah, Paula, you’re going to have to watch out for this guy,” I warned her. “He’s probably researched every lie detection countermeasure on the Internet.”

  “So, have I,” she replied simply.

  “Good, because I’ve briefed my security guys to give you a run for your money,” Cam replied.

  “Lie.”

  Cam threw his hands up. “Jesus! You watch out. My team recognizes a challenge when they hear it.”

  Jessie clapped a hand on Cam’s shoulder.

  “Go right on ahead. It’s good to have someone keeping us on our toes. Now, weren’t we supposed to be getting the schematics for this place pretty soon?”

  Cam turned back to the three of us and a relieved Paula returned to her work. Paula was articulate enough and could hold her own during a presentation, but she very much preferred to leave the glad-handing to the rest of us.

  “Oh. Yeah. J.C. asked me to tell you that he’ll have that ready for you tomorrow. Not all the changes had been recorded to the master file and he wants to consolidate everything before he copies that over to you.”

  “Sounds fair enough. At this rate it looks like that’s about when we’ll be ready for it,” Jessie replied looking around the room at the towers of equipment and supplies still needing to be unpacked.

  And then there was that small matter of the three boxes of equipment that would have to be reordered.

  Even as I looked around the mess for my workpad to do just that, Cam caught my gaze.

  “Now, I was wondering if Kaitlin might have time to join me for lunch. Can you spare her for an hour or so?”

  Cam was looking to Jessie for an answer, but it was Gerard who replied.

  “Oh, you go right on ahead and take her. But you better make sure you’ve got all your shots updated first.”

  I shot him a look. “Thanks, Gerard.”

  Jessie went blank for a second, then his intention reached for me. He really didn’t like the idea but picking through that lash of emotions so quickly made it hard for me to read why. A mess of anxiety, threads of anger, mistrust, surprise. But in seconds he had it back under control.

  “I…I’ll get my bag,” I said.

  Deliberately, I turned my back to Jessie, trying to give him at least the illusion of privacy. But there was a lingering little pain in my chest as I followed Cam out the door and I just couldn’t be sure if it was my mentor’s or if it was mine.

  “I’m going to pretend I’m not underdressed and covered with box dirt.”

  Cam pushed the door open ahead of me and we walked into Pioneer’s Landing on a floor of the ship we couldn’t even access without his ID.

  “No one will notice.”

  I laughed. “You used to have a wife, you know how this works.”

  I caught the sharp lash of anger and hurt across the side of my body. I glanced over, felt him shake it off.

  “You are nothing like my ex-wife. You could be covered with soot from head to foot and still walk through this place with your head up. You are absolutely nothing like her. But you won’t need to worry about an audience for a couple weeks yet.”

  Ah, the elusive ex-wife. Never named. Never discussed except in brief references. But if it still hurt him that much, I guessed I could understand why.

  I glanced around the glass and palm trees room and realized Cam was right about the audience. Only one table was occupied. When he headed for the balcony door, I hesitated. Midday at the equator wasn’t my idea of comfortable. Cam caught my hesitation.

  “Come on. It’s not so bad. You’ll see.”

  I shook my head and followed him out. As I passed through the door, I discovered that the balcony bore an almost completely transparent awning. A fine mist sifted down through the air, leaving the atmosphere sparkling and just cool enough to be comfortable. With a hand on my s
houlder, Cam steered me to a green and glass table next to the balcony railing.

  I bypassed the chair and leaned up against the railing overlooking the pool decks, several layers of the suite balconies, and the wide, white expanse of the elevator platform. To my left and right the sea went on for eternity, blending with the blue of the sky. I tossed my hair back and drank in the clean warmth of the sun, felt the mist soothe my skin.

  “God, I needed this! This is gorgeous.” I turned to look back at Cam. “Thank you.”

  The minute our eyes met, the radiant sunshine in him turned to a darker kind of heat. He stepped forward, brushed back a strand of hair that had caught on my lip.

  “I missed you yesterday.”

  “Yeah.”

  My hand found its way to his shirt, my thumb ran circles over the center button. His hand stayed at my cheek, his thumb ran lines over my cheekbone. Maybe it was his intention that pulled me forward. Maybe I just stepped. If Ashley had any word of warning, I never heard it.

  His breath came into me, filling my senses, my lungs with a sweet tang. His hand moved back to cradle my head as I let go and let him in. No more hesitation. My choice, my beautiful choice. His lips brushed mine, I rose up, wanting closer, wanting more. My hands found his hair, my body found his body. I felt him shudder as I pressed closer. The skin of his fingers wrapped around the naked flesh of my waist just under the tail of my shirt and kneaded and kneaded and kneaded until I groaned.

  My back hit the railing. Cam pulled his lips away from mine with a ragged breath. I was already reaching for him, trying to pull him back.

  “Kaitlin.” He chuckled, very gently holding me still. “Oh, god. You are…I’ve been…oh, boy.”

  I pressed my cheek to his, just wanting to absorb one last bit of softness before I returned to reality.

  Cam lifted his head. “Oh, look, it’s starting.”

  Holding me close, he turned me around, wrapped his arms tight around me, rested his chin on my head. I registered his erection tucked between us and felt a strange combination of elation and chagrin.

  Cam pointed out to the other end of the ship. I followed his gestured with my gaze. The elevator deck was moving!