The Drafter (14 page)

“Sandy, some help here?” Frank said brusquely as Allen tightened his grip, and she gasped, seeing stars. “I don't want to have to explain him when Peri finishes the weave.”

“Don't do this,” Peri demanded, hating her inability, and then adrenaline flashed through her as time began to mesh. Suddenly, forgetting was too high a price to pay, and she panicked, fighting Allen and sending them both down.

“Get your ass over here and help me!” Frank shouted, and Sandy screamed something in a singsong language, bitter and angry.

“Let me go!” Peri exclaimed, but it was too late, and she seized as time snapped and her head exploded in a red wash.

“Her scarf! Get her bloody scarf,” Frank exclaimed.

“No!” Peri raged as Allen slipped into her mind, the way opened by the meshing of the timelines. Images sped past her, curling up in flame, destroyed: the button from the security guard, New Year's under the stars, throwing flowers from the bridge in Paris in the rain, a total eclipse of the sun seen from a cruiser in the Bahamas, their toes rising out of a tub of bubbles, their first kiss, a shy smile and introduction as she was given a new anchor. She was going to miss Jennifer, but Jack seemed nice
.

Pulse hammering, Peri looked up, confused when the man kneeling beside her staggered to a stand, a hand to his chest as he panted.
Heart attack
, she thought, and she felt her own chest, not knowing why.

Suspecting that she'd drafted, she lurched to her feet, reaching for the table when suddenly everything hurt.
New hurt layered over old
. She was at Overdraft, but not the one she remembered. It was closed, with chairs on the tables. Sandy was behind the bar, pale and unmoving as she stared at her with wide eyes, her beautiful hair mussed. Frank was with her, dropping a red towel into the sink and turning the water on full. The smell of spent gunpowder was obvious.

Sandy—always-in-control Sandy—was quietly panicking, muttering in a singsong until Frank told her to shut up. His back was to Peri, and he watched her through the mirror. But it was the mirror with its
shelves of bottles that Peri stared at. They looked wrong in their orderly smoothness, and she couldn't say why.

“Where's Jennifer?” Peri whispered, glancing at the unfamiliar man. Her hand went to her throat. It was sore, and she was sweating. Confused, she looked at her wrist, red where someone had twisted the skin. Her shoulder felt as if it had been wrenched.

“Call 911,” Frank muttered, and the man beside her jerked his head up. Peri's eyes widened. Frank was covered in blood!

“We're
all
okay,” the man beside Peri said firmly, a ribbon of sweat inching down his neck, and Sandy looked at her feet, her lips parting.

“B-but . . . ,” Peri stammered.

“I said we're all
okay
,” the man said again. “Frank doesn't need an ambulance. It's just a bloody nose, for God's sake.”

Frank turned off the water, motions small as he edged out from behind the bar. Shaky, Peri sat against the edge of the table and tried to figure out what had happened. At least she knew where she was and who she was with. Her eyes slid to the Opti stiff now sitting on the raised fireplace hearth, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, his curly black hair hiding his eyes.
Mostly, anyway
.

Feeling ill, she staggered to the bar. Sandy made a tiny noise, looking scared as Peri moved to stand right before her. Frank, too, became oddly alert. “Shit, I've got a black eye,” she said as she caught sight of it in the mirror. She carefully prodded it, deciding it was a day old. They'd just come back from task, then. That would explain the aches.

Just that small knowledge made her feel better. “Where's Jennifer?” Peri asked, her flash of good mood dying when Sandy's eyes darted to the man at the fireplace.

Peri turned, her growing hunch that she'd overdrafted growing when the man on the hearth looked up, his eyes haunted. “Ah, what day is it?” Peri asked him weakly. Crap, the jukebox was gone, replaced with some new system she'd have to relearn.

“Er, it's Saturday now. I think.” The man glanced at Frank when the big man cleared his throat in warning. “I'm sorry. I should have asked you before. Are you okay?”

Peri's throat tightened. Something had gone very wrong. “No,” she
said as she turned back to the bar, laying her arms flat on the smooth wood and dropping her head to hide her face against them. It was bad, really bad—so bad she felt sick to her stomach.

“I'll give it all to you later, but the guy you were watching tried to rob the place. He shot you. You drafted. He ran out in the second weave.”

Why is it I can handle both when told, but remembering them will cause a psychotic episode?
“I don't remember you,” Peri said, her breath coming back from the bar warm and stale. She tensed at his footsteps, then jumped when his hand landed on her shoulder and fell away. A tear brimmed but never fell. Knowing he was still there, she looked up at the stranger with whom she'd been sharing her life for who knew how long. His glasses drew her, as if she should recognize them. “What year is it?”

His smile faded. “Year?” The lump in Peri's throat grew, and when she did nothing but silently stare at him, he whispered, “It's February 2030. Valentine's is next week. . . .”

Peri's stomach caved in and became a knot. Oh God. She'd lost three entire years. Someone had tried to kill her and apparently succeeded. That'd be the only reason she'd lost so much. Turning away, she held her breath. “I'm sorry, I don't remember you.”
Three years? How could I lose three years?

“Oh . . . ,” the man said, and she jerked, heart pounding when he touched her again. She was angry, as if she'd done something unconscionably stupid. “I'm Allen. Ah, Allen Swift,” he said, his hand falling away with a guilty slowness.

Taking a deep breath, Peri met Allen's eyes. She didn't know this man, but Frank and Sandy did, and she was tired of looking stupid. Besides, she'd lost time before. This man would help her find her way. “Can we go home?” she said, and Allen looked so relieved that she couldn't help but try to smile back.

Her hand in his felt okay as he helped her off the stool. She might not remember him, but he clearly knew her. “You have this?” he asked Frank.

“Yes. You?” the big man answered. Sandy was still pale as she stood behind him, glancing at her feet again to make Peri wonder if she was avoiding broken glass. Her continued frightened silence behind the bar was odd.

Allen took Peri's coat from the bar. “We'll figure it out. Peri, you've got the keys, right?” he asked as he helped her into it.

Peri touched her coat pocket to find a fob. “Looks like it,” she said, doubting it belonged to the little Beemer she remembered. Her taste in clothes had improved in the last three years, and the coat was everything she liked. Allen pulled a gray scarf from a table and got her moving, and she paused, more curious than shocked at the blood on the door. With a small grunt, Frank hustled over and unlocked it, accidentally kicking the floor sweeper into the wall, where it gave a pained whine and died.

“After you,” Allen said as he wound his scarf about his neck. The cool night air shocked through her as the door opened, and Peri took one last look at Sandy standing stiffly behind the bar. There was a strand of black hair caught in Peri's fingers, and she pulled it free to let it drift to the cold pavement. Frank was watching from the open door, and Peri's unease grew.

“Ah, Allen?” Frank said. “I suggest you get Peri checked out before you go home. I'll let Bill know where you are.”

“I'm fine,” Peri protested, but Allen seemed to start, visibly collecting his thoughts.

“Mmmm. He's right,” he said, thin fingers touching the side of his long nose as he scanned the nearly empty lot. “You hit your head. It won't take long.”

“It will take all night,” she complained. “I don't need to go in.” But he was ushering her forward, his hand familiarly on the small of her back. It didn't feel wrong there, but she didn't like being pushed. “I haven't changed my apartment in the last three years, have I?”

“No.”

“Is my mom still alive?” she asked, the cold night making her bruised eye throb.

“Yes. You called her yesterday. Now, will you please get in the car?”

She had talked to her mom? Clearly things had improved. Either that, or gotten much worse. “Sure. Which one is it?”

Allen took the fob right out of her hand and clicked it. Across the way, a sleek black car flashed its lights. “Maybe I should drive,” he said in sudden avarice, and her eyes widened.
Holy shit, it's a Mantis. I own a Mantis?

“This is ridiculous, I'm fine,” Peri complained. “Allen, give me my keys back,” she protested when he held them out of her reach like a playground bully.

“No, I'm driving,” he insisted, and she gave up, hands in her pockets as she stomped beside him.

“This is really bad for my asthma,” she muttered, angry and becoming depressed.

Allen started, turning to her in surprise. “Asthma? I didn't know you had asthma.”

Peri blinked at him, confused.
Why did I say that?
“I don't,” she said as she pulled her coat closer. “Sorry. Bad joke.”

Kind of like her life.

S
he'd had to reinstate Allen into the car's system before he could drive it. That hadn't bothered her as much as Allen not knowing what she'd had her Mantis in for or why the technicians had accidentally blown him out.
A Mantis
, she thought in satisfaction, wondering what color palette she'd programmed into it. You couldn't even get on the purchase list unless you'd lived in Detroit for ten years.

'Cause only those who never gave up on her should be allowed to play with her toys
, Peri thought, as the bright neon of one of Detroit's casinos came and went between the e-boards, green spaces, and community gardens lit like a fairyland for the night.

Uneasy, she glanced at Allen as they slipped into an industrial park. She felt as if she'd left something behind, like her wallet or a sweater.
Or maybe a gun
, she thought, stealthily feeling the edge of her boot to find her knife. Her angst was growing, but she dismissed it, knowing it was likely the shock of losing so much time. She was fine, damn it!

But the unease only grew worse as they took an easy curve and Opti spread before them, two empty lanes of dim lights and stiff regulations at two in the morning. “I don't want to be here,” she protested, even as she dug in her purse for her ID. An odd pane of glass caught her eye, and with a shock, she realized it was her phone.
Glass? I've got glass? Cool
.

Allen slipped his ID from a shirt pocket. “I can tell,” he said as the woman on duty stepped forward. “You hit your head. I'm not letting you go to sleep until you get checked out.”

“I'm fine,” she complained as the snow-crisp air slipped in his lowered window, but she dutifully showed the security woman her ID across the expanse for her to scan it. “A good night's sleep would do me more good than being here.”

“Let me do my
job
,” Allen said, the bitterness catching the security woman's attention. “We're going to the med offices,” he said to her, though he didn't have to. “She overdrafted, and I want her checked out.”

Overdrafted, as in losing too much memory to function properly
, Peri thought. Bullshit. She'd probably lost large chunks of time before.
And therein lies the problem. . . .

The woman waved them through, and Allen's grip on the wheel tightened as he drove toward the small Opti infirmary across campus from the larger office building. His frustration was obvious in the occasional glimmer of a streetlight. “I know you're tired, but you drafted twice in twenty-four hours. I want you checked out before I go mucking about in your head.”

I drafted twice?
Uneasy, she dropped her glass phone into her purse to figure out how to use later. “You think I might MEP?”

He didn't answer, worrying her even more. MEPs were usually preceded by multiple drafts with no time between to sort things out, but occasionally old damage or a memory knot could trigger it. Peri suddenly felt fragile.

“I don't want to muddle it up,” he said softly, the car slowing as he pulled up right before the door of an unassuming three-story building. “I'd feel better if we checked your synaptic activity levels.”

His uncertainty bothered her more than anything else, and she looked straight ahead as he turned the car off. Her gaze went to her broken nail, and her pulse throbbed at her eye and at the back of her head. Her hip was bruised, and her shoulder had been wrenched. The faint scent of gunpowder lingered in the seat cushions. Her Mantis could be cleaned and the sundry hurts in her body would mend. The damage to her mind . . . that's where the darkness lay.

Seeing her unmoving, Allen set a tentative hand on her knee. “It's going to be okay,” he said, but his smile held doubt, and she was glad when he took his hand away.

They got out at the same time, the doors shutting loud in the crisp, snowy night. Opti's infirmary building looked like all the rest. There weren't many Opti operatives, and their unique ailments didn't take up much room.

Allen held the heavy glass door, and she murmured her thanks as she went in, too tired to smile at the receptionist. Allen could be personable for both of them. “Special needs,” he said by way of explanation, but Peri was already following the teal line on the floor. Allen jogged to catch up, the cadence telling her he ran regularly. She felt only a minor flash of irritation when he looped his arm in hers to slow her down. He was only a few inches taller, and that seemed odd somehow. Muscle memory never vanished, and her suspicions tightened.