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Glenn limped up to his car.

He was not happy.

If what the guy in the chamber had said was true—that RixoTray had sent him and the woman—then there was an awful lot his contact
was not telling him, and Glenn did not take well to having his employers keep things from him.

He opened the car door and tried to slide in without wrenching his leg but found it impossible. A flare of pain shot through him.

He cursed. Thought of what happened in that chamber.

In prison he'd learned to trust his instincts, and as it turned out, tonight they were right, because just before the fight he'd had a feeling, nothing more, that someone was watching him. That was what had caused him to turn from the computer and open the door to the chamber.

But then the guy inside had flashed his light in his eyes and Glenn was forced to defend himself.

Why would RixoTray have sent those two?

Unless they hadn't.

Unless the guy was lying.

With a great deal of pain, Glenn was able to position himself in the driver's seat. He started the engine.

Thankfully, the blade hadn't pierced an artery.

He knew enough about anatomy to know that if it had, he would already be dead.

Quietly, slowly, he guided the car onto the road.

He used his right hand to press down on the knee of his injured leg to keep from flexing the thigh muscles as he accelerated.

The trek back to the car had been brutal, pain rocketing up his leg with every step, no matter how hard he tried to keep pressure off it. But he'd dealt with it just like he'd dealt with things when he was locked up and took a shiv to the stomach and still managed to dig it out and slice out the eyes and cut off the ears of the block-mate who'd tried to kill him.

Glenn headed down the mountain road.

Whoever had been in that chamber had been quick. Strong. Had known how to fight.

But who was he? Who was the woman?

What were they doing there?

RixoTray Pharmaceuticals?

It could have been a lie, but it was a place to start.

Glenn prided himself on being self-controlled, on viewing things objectively, but as he drove back to the motel to take care of the leg, he felt fire rise inside of him.

He was a person who kept his word, so, yes, he would take care of the old man tomorrow afternoon at three like he'd been hired to do. But he wasn't going to stop there. He would find that guy from the chamber and return the favor, wound for wound, as the Bible put it in Exodus 21:25.

An eye for an eye.

Or in this case, a stab for a stab.

God's kind of justice.

Or at least Glenn's kind.

He found himself planning how things would go down: incapacitate the guy, cuff him, and then make him watch as he played with the woman for a while. At last, when he was done with her, stab him in the thigh—and if the blade just so happened to slice through his femoral artery, well, justice in real life didn't always have to stick to the letter of the law.

So, the plan for tonight: take enough OxyContin to kill the pain in his leg—God knows he had plenty of it on hand—then in the morning call his contact to identify the two people who'd been in that room. Tomorrow, after he'd completed his paying gig, he would deal with them.

He glanced at his wrist to check the time.

But noticed that his watch was missing.

He let out a round of curses. It must have fallen off during the fight in the chamber.

I have the assailant's watch in my pocket.

I'd happened to lift it when I slid my hand across his wrist just before I shoved the blade of his knife into his thigh.

Truthfully, removing the watch was pure instinct from all my years of sleight of hand and street magic, not something I'd consciously planned. During the fight, the last thing I was thinking was how I might remove the guy's wristwatch, but in any case I have it now, and it might serve as some small clue that could lead us to identifying who our assailant was.

After trying unsuccessfully to reach Fionna or Xavier, I pause beneath one of the path's lights. Holding the watch in my shirt to keep from getting any more of my fingerprints on it, I carefully study it.

It's a Reactor Poseidon Limited Edition. Very nice. In my line of work you get to know watches, and even though Reactor is a small company, their watches are amazing. This one won't even get scratched if you shoot it with a bullet. I couldn't help but think that a regular street thug would have sold a watch like this for cash if he knew how much it was worth. So the guy we were dealing with might very well be better trained, more of a pro, than I'd earlier assumed.

The watch is relatively new. No engravings. No unique identifying
marks, which isn't exactly surprising considering the craftsmanship and the durability of the materials.

Who knows, Xavier is into CSI kinds of things and would probably jump at the chance to dust the watch for prints. I could get it to him as soon as we meet up again, tomorrow sometime.

Inside the cabin I find Charlene at the table, flipping through the notes we'd used to prepare for this project. “Any luck?”

“No.” I show her the watch, and we discuss it but can't come up with any other clues, and in the end I stow it in the bedroom and return to her.

I point to the RixoTray research documents that she'd spread out around her when I was outside. “What about you? Did you find anything?”

“Nothing related to quantum entanglement or mind-to-mind communication research. But they are doing research on the temporal lobe—the language-recognition capabilities of the Wernicke's area—by using an EEG to record brain images and identify thought patterns that relate to linguistic communication. It's similar in a way to helping paralyzed people communicate by identifying their neural responses to questions.”

“Interesting.”

“Once you know which parts of the brain control which parts of your physiology, you can send electrical currents to those areas to elicit a physical response. Scientists have been experimenting on helping paralyzed people move their limbs, blind people see variations in light, insomniacs sleep, obese people curb their hunger, and even doing work on reducing aggression in criminals. They can even cause hallucinations that patients can't tell from reality and reduce or eliminate intractable pain.”

She goes on, “Researchers at a number of universities have implanted electrodes into monkeys' brains and then trained the primates to move robotic arms. At least four computer gaming companies are developing EEG-controlled games in which the games respond—”

“Let me guess—to the player's thoughts.”

“Yes.”

“Wow.”

“Anyway, one division at RixoTray is focusing on direct brain-computer interfaces and communication. It's mentioned on a number of grant applications. A neuroscientist named Riah Colette, she's in charge of the study.”

“Might be helpful to talk with her. See what the specific connection might be to what Tanbyrn's doing.”

“Couldn't hurt.”

We agree to follow up on that tomorrow. Then, after a little more discussion about who the attacker might've been, I can tell that Charlene's energy is fading and I realize I'm drained as well—both physically and emotionally. She goes into the bedroom to change and I grab a blanket from the bathroom closet.

When she emerges in the hallway, she's wearing a pair of sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. Nothing Victoria's Secret seductive, but it's easy enough to tell she's in good shape and I'm careful not to stare.

I hold up the blanket. “I'll take the couch.”

“Really, you don't need to sleep on the couch, Jevin.” Before I can respond, she catches herself and goes on quickly as if to avert any misunderstanding: “I mean, that is, there's plenty of room on the bed. I'm just saying it's okay if you want to sleep with me—next to me. Right? On the other side of the bed.”

“Right.”

“I'm not suggesting at all that we do anything other than sleep.” She doesn't blush often, but she does now, and it's a little endearing.

“Of course.”

This conversation could get awfully awkward awfully fast.

As if it hasn't already.

I have no doubt that if I climb into bed with her, even if she ends up sleeping like a baby, I'll be too distracted to sleep at all. And I know I'm definitely not ready for her to inadvertently snuggle up to me or accidentally drape her arm across my chest sometime during the night.

“The couch would be best,” I tell her.

“Sure. Okay.”

“Alright . . .” I search unsuccessfully to say the right thing. “So then. Good night. And . . . just be careful with that arm.”

“I will.”

“Don't roll on it or anything.”

“I'll be careful. I promise.”

I pass the blanket to my other hand. I really have no idea how to wrap up this conversation. “We'll see what it looks like in the morning. I still want to take you to the hospital.”

“Noted.” She smiles. “Good night, Petunia.” Her tone is light, the blush is gone, the moment feels natural and familiar. She glances at the couch. “Seriously, if you can't sleep, you're welcome to the other side of the bed.”

I nod. “Gotcha.”

With that, she leaves for the bedroom and I drop onto the couch. It's a little short, but I usually sleep kind of scrunched up anyway and I figure I'll be alright.

As I lie down, I can't help but think of the attacker in the chamber, and I realize that what bothers me most is the fact that I wasn't able to stop him from hurting Charlene.

I promise myself that if we run into each other again, I won't make the same mistake, then I close my eyes, hoping to sleep, to clear my head, hoping that the dreams I've had so often over the course of the last year won't return.

But I'm anticipating, of course, that they will. After all, the nightmares of my children drowning while my wife sits just a few feet away and waits for them to die have been plaguing me for months.

It wouldn't be so bad if it was just a dream. But it's not. It's history.

For a while I'm caught in the time-between-times world of waking and sleeping where you wander into and out of awareness, then I'm vaguely aware of the fact that scientists don't really understand sleep, why we do it, what biological purpose it actually serves. We're
never more vulnerable than when we're asleep, and if the most vulnerable members of a species die out, then natural selection should have weeded us out. From an evolutionary point of view, it makes no sense.

Never more vulnerable . . .

And then I drop away from where I am and tip into the world of my dreams.

The twins stepped into the conference room.

Gentle-looking, both of them, with an easy, measured confidence. No swagger. No posturing. Medium build. Wiry. Clean-cut. Soft-spoken.

If it wasn't for the scar snaking across Darren's left cheek, Riah wouldn't have been able to tell them apart.

She noticed that Cyrus was keeping his distance from them, and though it didn't entirely surprise her, she did find it informative.

She greeted each twin with a half-hug. Their friendship allowed for this, made it seem like the natural greeting. After all, when you've inserted nanowire electrodes up someone's artery and into his brain, it tends to engender a certain degree of trust.

Deep-brain stimulation used to be highly invasive and involved dozens or even hundreds of electrodes implanted in the brain through small burr holes drilled in the skull.

Not anymore.

Now, tiny polymer nanowire electrodes less than six hundred nanometers wide are used. Since their width is far less than that of a red blood cell, they can be inserted through an artery in the arm and guided through the vasculature up and into the brain, where they're used to deliver electric signals to stimulate the neurons in the hardest-to-reach parts of the brain.

The process had been around since 2006, but Riah had made advances that allowed for electric stimulation of the Wernicke's area, the temporal lobe's language-recognition center. She'd implanted the electrodes in the brains of the twins three weeks ago.

After a brief “How are you doing?” conversation back and forth, Cyrus cleared his throat slightly and offered Riah a smile that wasn't really a smile. “Riah, really. I think it would be best if you waited outside the room, gave us just a few minutes alone.”

The words were condescending, but her feelings weren't hurt, though she had the sense that given the social context, they should have been.

Daniel and Darren watched Cyrus quietly. Before Riah could reply to him, Darren spoke up: “We trust Riah. She can stay. It's time we brought her in on the broader nature of the project.”

“No.” Cyrus shook his head. “I'm afraid that's—”

“Nonnegotiable,” Daniel said firmly. He gestured toward his brother, who was still staring steadily at Cyrus. “We've been talking about it, my brother and I, and we were going to tell you tonight. That's one of the reasons we requested you come. She needs to know about Kabul or we don't move forward. It's time to integrate the findings from Oregon. It's the only way to make things work. As my brother said, we trust her.”

Riah watched Cyrus. Having the twins contravene what you'd said like that would cause most people to squirm or backpedal or acquiesce immediately, but she could see a storm of resistance on Cyrus's face, a narrowing of his dark eyes. If he had been afraid before, he didn't appear to be so now.

It struck her that for all of his talk of trusting her, he hadn't been all that forthcoming but had been keeping things from her—that the twins were back in Pennsylvania, the nature of this visit tonight, why he wanted her to step into the hallway even though she was the head researcher on the electrical brain stimulation program.

Had he lied to her? Perhaps not lies, technically, but not the truth either.

As she thought about that, she realized that all the men she'd been with over the years, even her father when she was a little girl, had deceived her at some point, and eventually—some sooner than others—betrayed her in the most intimate ways possible.

A thought came to her, an epiphany about human nature that was both disquieting but also quite possibly the truth:
Betrayal is a facet of love.

Could it be?

She waited for Cyrus to respond.

Could betrayal be as natural to our species as attraction is?

And another thought, almost poetic in its simplicity:
If familiarity breeds contempt, then what kind of dark children does intimacy breed?

She was considering this when Cyrus replied to Daniel, “I'll have to clear it with Williamson.”

“Yes.”

“She'll be in bed by now. I'd be waking her up.”

“Yes.” Daniel reached into his pocket, produced his Droid. “Would you like to use my phone or yours?”