The Facilitator (3 page)

“Suck it up, girlie. We don’t have much time.” He moved his hips and ground himself into her clitoris. “That motherfucking Carson’s gonna be lookin’ for me if he isn’t already.”

She bit down on a surge of pleasure as her arousal grew. “Who’s Carson?”

“Someone you don’t wanna meet.” He adjusted his stance and grunted in approval. “Syndicate honcho.”

“He’s looking for you?”

He didn’t answer, his movements fast and slick. Obviously, he’d done this before.

Martine’s back was being rubbed against a brick wall, which was somewhat uncomfortable. Her front was being rubbed against another brick wall, only this one was warmer. She was six inches off the ground with one leg wrapped around the guy who was fucking her, thanks to brute force and strength that could have made steel blush with envy.

In spite of all these inconveniences, she had to give Taber his due. He was making her come. Part of her brain was yelling out things like
whoa
, and
this ain’t supposed to be part of the job, baby
.

The other part was simply doing the whole porn-whimper thing and getting ready to orgasm. Looked like this facilitation was going to leave both parties with contented nucleus accumbenses. Or whatever. One of them would be dead, but at least he’d die after his orgasm, not before.

Once again, Martine was surprised. She climaxed, rolling through the spasms, locking him against her, vaguely hearing his groan as he thrust hard and spurted deep. “Fuck, baby. Fuck.” He squashed against her. “That’s fucking good.”

A man of few, but pithy, words, apparently. In spite of that, he sure knew how to fuck a woman. She found herself unsteady on her high heels for a moment or two as he slid her down the wall.

“Er, thanks, Taber. You’re pretty damn good yourself.” She recovered the little G-string, for what good it would do her.

He grinned then, a smile that lightened his expression significantly. “Ain’t had no complaints up to now.”

Something clattered at the end of the alley, and Martine found herself slammed back into the wall by an arm that had turned into granite. He was holding her behind him, and crooked in his other arm was one of the latest electromagnetic pulse lasers. And it wasn’t a handgun. It was truly enormous.

Shit
. What the
fuck
was going on? This wasn’t a peaceful
let’s-say-goodbye
type fantasy.

Her scalp tingled as the buzz-scream of shots rang out and a bit of brick whizzed past her neck. Taber jerked, cried out and stumbled, falling to his knees. She dropped down beside him as he pulled on her, still trying to shield her with his body.

“Fucking Carson. He set me up.” His head turned toward her even as he fired off more shots at whatever moved in the alley. “
You
set me up, you bitch.”

“No, I…” She stuttered. This was so out of her realm of experiences she had no freakin’ clue how to respond.

“Yes you did. You’re just how he works, underhanded and digging out weakness. I like a good quick fuck and a hefty pair of tits—and here you are. Coincidence, my ass.”

“I didn’t… I wouldn’t…”

He was past listening to her, the side of his body where he’d taken a hit growing red as his blood spewed out. “You did. And fuck you, bitch, if I’ve gotta go out, you’re coming with me.”

A massive paw grabbed her throat and she tumbled down beside him. “No…” She could barely choke out the word.

This was way too real. Wrong on all the levels she’d come to understand as a facilitator. This wasn’t just a man who was UAM, this was a man who lived with death, and who’d fight it every step of the way. Even up to taking her as well.

She closed her eyes and focused on her neural interface, searching now, seeking something she knew was there but had seldom needed to access directly. It was his life force, his energies—some might even call it his soul.

And she’d damn well better find it before his grip tightened any more. She wasn’t worried about him actually killing her, but she did want to finish this job before she passed out. There was no way she’d repeat this experience if he didn’t let go the first time around.

Her pulse pounded, laser shots buzzed and the metallic stench of blood filled the air. Shutting it all out, Martine delved deep into the interface and finally found what she was looking for. A ribbon, a Mobius strip of energy, throbbing violently amidst the river of color and vibrancy that was their connection.

There was nothing weak or fading about it. It seemed, to Martine, about as healthy as it should be. But then again, he had Antin’s Syndrome. One minute fine, the next—
poof
. Rest in peace.

She felt the process of facilitation begin, a slow drain at first, her neural network sorting itself out to accommodate his life energies. Then it came faster, cascading fiercely, making her dizzy instead of warm, nauseous instead of comforted.

Other emotions—pain, anger, passion—poured over the interface as she attempted to complete her job and help him pass on.

It was working, but it was all wrong. He was angry, fighting against the energy drain, still gripping her throat but no longer squeezing. Darkness flowed through her now, a cold darkness that didn’t ease her tension, but added to it.

He didn’t want to die and there was no way she could change that. She could only do her job. With a last, huge effort, Martine overwhelmed his savage desire to cling to his energies and drained him, feeling his fingers finally relax around her throat.

“Why?” He breathed the word softly into the silence that had fallen around them.

“I’m sorry.” She answered him, but it wasn’t really an answer.

Then she blacked out.

“Hey. Hey, Martine. Open your eyes, honey. Look at me. C’mon, Martine…”

The voice percolated the fog that comprised ninety percent of her brain, and in response she bravely raised her eyelids.

A flare of brilliant light pierced through, and she lurched upright to find herself vomiting violently.

“Easy there. It’s okay.”

Somebody was holding a pan for her, rubbing her back, letting her empty her system. And when the spasm ended, a glass of blissfully cold water was held to her lips and she drank thirstily.

The nurse raised the bed a little, and Martine leaned back with a sigh. “God, that was bad.”

“Yeah, you aren’t kidding.” Efficiently, the nurse tucked in blankets. “Just rest now, okay?”

“Wait.” Martine grabbed the white tunic, staying the nurse. “Did I do it? Is he…you know…facilitated?”

“You did it, honey. He passed away.” She patted Martine’s hand in a motherly fashion, soothing her anxieties. “Nobody else could have handled it like you did, I’m sure. We all felt he was trouble when he came in last night, even though he was doped to the eyeballs.”

“Yeah, he was trouble all right.” Martine closed her eyes. “Never been through anything quite like that.”

“Tell me about it.” The nurse tidied up. “You damn near threw up your spleen.”

“Sorry.” Martine chuckled. “That’s something I can’t help. But it’s never been that bad. Never had
that
level of nausea, even with the difficult ones.”

“Guess he was bad news all around.” The nurse pulled Martine’s wire interface out from behind her back and arranged it comfortably on the pillow. “You just rest now, okay? Orders are you stay here until you feel like you can get back on your feet. Then no cases for you for several days.” She smiled. “You just bought yourself some downtime, Martine. Use it, okay?”

“Thanks.” Martine smiled tiredly. “I will.”

The nurse left and Martine realized she was in a recovery room, more like a patient of Eternal Tranquility than an employee. Certainly nobody would mistake her for a facilitator right now. She was as weak as the proverbial kitten.

Eternal Tranquility. The name of the clinic was supposed to convey the softly comforting notion that eternal rest could be ensured to be pleasant. That infinity was not a problem if you embraced it and moved into it in the right frame of mind.

Taber hadn’t been in that frame of mind at all. He’d gone into it kicking and screaming, metaphorically speaking. She’d been responsible for dragging him to his demise. That wasn’t facilitation, not the way she’d come to understand it.

She didn’t know what it was, but she did know one thing. She didn’t like it nor did she like the pain it had brought with it. It
hurt
.

For one of the few times she could ever remember, Martine TwoSeven closed her eyes and cried.

Chapter Three

Less than a week later, the dreams began.

Dreaming, for facilitators, was a mixed blessing. Their neural interfaces were so closely connected with all the highly active areas of the brain that any kind of dream state was much more real than it was to others lacking those interfaces.

Consequently, most facilitators opted not to dream at all since they couldn’t pick and choose where their sleeping minds would take them. They simply flicked a switch before going to bed. A tiny pulsating signal disabled the several areas of the brain known to be associated with dreaming. Their rest was undisturbed REM sleep, accomplished but not recalled—facilitators got a restful night’s sleep in spite of their unique brains.

Martine automatically chose this option at bedtime. So it was a surprise to her that not long after Taber’s unfortunate facilitation, she found herself in the middle of a rather strange dream. What was even more peculiar was that she
knew
it was a dream—as if part of her was observing another part dreaming.

Fortunately, she wasn’t naked. She was, however, barefoot. And strolling along a shore, watching birds running to the rippling waves and then back again.

“Hello.”

A voice sounded behind her and she turned, unable for a moment to see who was there. He moved closer, giving her a better look at him. She didn’t recognize his face at all. Yet he seemed friendly and there was no sense of menace or anxiety. “Hello.”

“My name is John.”

“I’m Martine.”

“I know. I’m here to talk to you.”

She frowned, then began to walk through the wavelets at the water’s edge. “Why? Why do you want to talk to me?”

He stepped to her side and strolled with her. “Because there are things you don’t know and you should.”

She laughed at that. “I’m sure there are a million and one things I don’t know.”

“True.” He joined her laughter. “A valid point indeed.”

She watched him, his brown hair longer than was stylish, softly drifting around his head. He wore a white garment, fluid and shapeless, almost eastern in the way it fell to his ankles loosely and was belted with a band of the same fabric. To her surprise she realized she was wearing the same thing. They must have looked a quite attractive couple against the shining teal waters and the clear blue sky.

“Martine, the things you don’t know and should—they’re about what you do. About being a facilitator.”

“You
know
?” She half-turned in surprise. “How? I don’t talk about what I do to anyone outside Eternal Tranquility. Ever.”

He returned her gaze, his eyes blue as the sky. “That is true. And yet still I know.”

“I…”

The wind caught at the white skirt, whipping it around her knees and making it flap, distracting her for a moment. And when she turned back, he was in front of her, holding both her hands in his.

“You are an innocent. You have a gifted mind and a talent few others will ever possess.”

Warmth flowed from John’s clasp, a comforting heat moving effortlessly between them. It was strange. All the times she’d been connected to other humans through her neural interface and yet never had she felt quite this way before. Never experienced that sense of wonder because another hand held hers.

“John, I don’t understand.”

“I know. It will take time.”

Now the light was fading, the sun setting and casting a brilliant ruddy glow on his face. It turned their garments to fire and the water calmed to a glowing blaze. “We’ll do this again, Martine. I will come to you.”

“You will?”

“I have to. It’s the only way to bring you to where you need to be. We start here. You begin here. Look at the past, Martine. 12-19 B.
Remember
.”

Their clothes vanished and she was naked against him, held there by a firm embrace. He wasn’t much taller than she, his body comfortably male, his face inches away. Her breasts tingled at the pressure from his chest, and she knew the hardness thrusting into her belly was his erection.

An erotic shock rattled her, loosening her loins, making her vividly aware of the basic connection they shared—not dreamer and dream, but male and female. An ache began between her thighs, one she’d not felt in quite some time.

As all these sensations rattled through her, Martine watched his eyes and the reflection she saw there. It was her, but not her. The figure had her face…her body. And yet it wasn’t a facilitator, a woman with neural connectors and abilities beyond the norm.

It was simply a woman in the arms of a man—waiting to be kissed.

Instinctively, she licked her lips, responding to the little shudder she felt coursing through John as his eyes dropped to follow the slick sweep of her tongue.

“Ahhh, Martine.” He whispered the words, dipped his head and kissed her.

He tasted of sunlight and other things, things she couldn’t name but that she knew she loved. Eagerly she parted her lips and urged him inside, her body moving against his, her eyes closing, her hands finding the hair at the back of his neck and riffling through the softness.

She lost herself in the moment, in the exquisite sensations trickling over her like warm drops of magic from a wizard’s wand.

And she woke with his name on her lips and the taste of him still in her mouth.

“John…” Her arms went out to embrace empty air. She grunted and flopped back down on the pillow.

“Well,
fuck
.”

It was lucky she had no appointments the next day, because her experience with her dream had left her more than a little shaken.

For one thing, it had been years since she’d even had a dream. And she didn’t think she’d ever had one quite as real or as confusing as this one. Not to mention the fact that it featured a man who made her pussy wet and her nipples hard.