Peri could hear their voices discussing her even before they got out the door. “You’ve got them well trained,” Peri said, and Silas looked startled.
“I’m trying to help you,” he said, sounding peeved, and she cocked her head when Jack cleared his throat in rebuke. “Okay, I’m trying to find out how far the corruption goes in Opti,” Silas amended, neck reddening. “But I’m trying to help you, too.”
“Opti isn’t corrupt,” she protested hotly, but doubt took her when Jack flicked his suit jacket aside and resettled himself on the card table. He was dressed better than Allen ever was, attractive with just the right amount of stubble and charm. The perfect mistake …
“Jack was your anchor until almost two months ago,” he said. “You found out he’d been taking you on non-Opti tasks, then traded your memory of it for the chance to kill him.”
Peri’s eyes slid to Jack—who grinned at her like an idiot—then back to Silas. It sounded like something she might do.
“This Jack, the one here, is a hallucination. One I designed to keep you from going into overdraft when you tried to remember it.”
“Liar!” she exclaimed. “I wouldn’t kill my own anchor.” But she had only Bill’s and Allen’s word that Allen had been her anchor the last three years, and doubt began to gnaw at her. Shit. Who the hell am I?
“You might if you found out he was working for Bill, not Opti,” Silas said, looking toward the dented doors when a car horn blew. “They’re both corrupt, and I’m not so sure about Allen anymore, either.”
“So Allen is corrupt. I bet you didn’t push him over my balcony, either?” She had meant it to be flip, but the man’s entire expression became relieved.
“Exactly,” he breathed, and her eyes flicked to the ladder and her gun still on it. “I was never in your apartment. At least, not that night.”
“I’m not corrupt,” Peri said hotly. “And neither is Allen.”
“And yet you’re both here killing a man for your own revenge,” Silas said, and Peri’s teeth clenched, the doubt becoming more sure. “I know your rules,” Silas continued. “I know this isn’t you. They implanted the suggestion for you to get rid of me. If you do it, it will reinforce their lies. Stay here when we leave. Opti will show up. I promise it. They want you to kill me.”
“You can’t give a drafter a false memory,” she said, eyes going to the exit when Howard pushed the auditorium door open.
“Silas?” Howard looked worried. “We’ve got three cars with lights on the expressway.”
“You can,” Silas said, and Howard ducked back out. “That’s why I quit Opti. But Jack is my idea, too. He’s your intuition. Listen to him.”
A hallucination? Peri looked at Jack, and he stared back, her uncertainty growing.
Grimacing, Silas pulled a creased photo from his pocket and set it on the ladder beside the gun. “Last February, you and I brought back a memory of Jack that I wasn’t privy to. I lifted this from Allen before they torched your apartment at Lloyd Park, and I think this is what you remembered. I shouldn’t have left you that night. I’m sorry. I thought the alliance would help if I could just talk to them. It was a mistake.”
Peri blinked. He should have been there with me? But then her focus blurred. Opti torched my apartment? She hadn’t moved because of a fire; she’d moved to get away from the memory of Allen being thrown off the balcony after going through the … bulletproof … window. How can he go through a window that can’t break?
“Peri,” Silas said, jerking her back to reality. “I need you to find a chip Jack hid. It’s a list of Bill’s corrupt drafters, and if you can get it to me, I can get you out. You’ll be safe. The alliance needs a reason to trust you.”
Breathless, Peri glanced at the picture, inching forward when Silas took the Glock and backed up. It was a photo of her and … “That’s you,” she said, looking at Jack, and he winced, nodding. “That’s you and me—”
“In the outback, last New Year’s,” Jack finished, and her face went cold.
“My God. Who are you?” she said, staring at him, and he shrugged, bewildered.
“I don’t know. But this guy trusts you, and Allen doesn’t.”
Vertigo took her as she realized it was true. “Hold still,” she said, cautiously reaching out to Jack, then staggering when her hand passed through him. Heat flashed through her, and she felt unreal. “Shit, shit, shit …,” she mumbled, backing up with her hand gripping her pendant pen. “You’re not real, and I’m going crazy.”
“No. I told you, you’re becoming sane,” Silas said, and she stood there, shocked when he tossed the Glock to her and it hit her palm with a soft and certain thump.
“Oh, man … I’m a hallucination?” Jack put a dramatic hand to his chest. “This is very bad for my asthma.”