A woman was approaching, and Allen drew Silas deeper into the shadows. “How? There is nothing there. I’d swear to it,” he whispered.
They were silent until the woman went in, never having seen them. Satisfaction lifted Silas’s chin. His manipulations had held, had given Peri something to find the truth with. His fix never would have lasted if she hadn’t trusted him. “I used the latent memory of Jack as a mental cop to prevent her going into MEP,” Silas said. “Sort of an interactive hallucination.”
Allen’s lips parted. “And she knows it’s fake?”
Silas nodded. “She does now. You can’t keep her ignorant. Your false memories are flaking away like cheap paint. She knows you’re lying to her. That’s why she sent you out here for cat food. I hope you didn’t leave anything you don’t want her to find.”
Allen pushed his glasses back up his narrow nose. “Nothing she would be surprised at. What did you tell her?”
“When you were out cold on the floor of Eastown?” Silas smirked. “Not much. But Jack is filling her in. Sandy had one thing right. You never forget, you just don’t remember.”
Silas jerked when Allen poked him with a stiff finger. “My life is in the open here, not yours,” he said, eyes virulent behind his glasses. “What did you tell her about me?”
Silas smiled bitterly. “Everything except who you work for, because I don’t know anymore. You keep saying Peri’s gone native, but you’re the one doing ugly things. I don’t even remember why we agreed to this.”
Uneasy, Allen shifted the grocery bag closer. “Because she was going to do it with or without us. Hell, Silas. You don’t have to scare me. I’m scared enough already. I watched her fight what Opti did to her, is still doing. I had to remind myself she agreed to it when she was screaming at me, threatening to kill me. It took three weeks to turn her from a raving knot of defiance to what you saw walk into Eastown, and she’s still shaky. You think I liked that?”
Silas stiffened. “She’s everything you ever wanted. Proud of yourself?”
Allen’s lip curled. “Will you get off your pity pony. There is nothing more I’d like to do than call Fran and tell her Peri is with us a hundred percent, but I can’t tell where her loyalties are. I can’t give her the green to come in. She likes who she is—a little too much.”
“You like what she is.”
“Shut up and listen to me. I’m telling you she likes who she is. I don’t care if she’s fighting it, she likes the power and ability, the status that Opti gives her. The feeling of superiority after every task. She enjoyed what she did with Jack, enjoyed it to the point where she ignored the lies and obvious incongruities until they were rubbed in her face. That’s why they keep scrubbing her and starting over. She likes it. They know it. And that’s why that Jack construct is still there. She won’t let herself forget.”
Silas backed up until a pylon hit his back. “She agreed to help the alliance fast enough.”
“Which is the only reason I’m continuing with this farce. That, and we’re in the best position we’ve been in for the last five years. You think I enjoyed stripping her down to nothing? Listening to her rave at me? Knowing I deserved it? She knew this might happen, and she agreed to it, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Her core hasn’t changed. But how she expresses it has.”
Silas thought of the gun in his pocket, remembered the fear and determination in her eyes when she faced him across the stage and rediscovered how badly her world was messed up. “That’s why I want to pull her out.”
“We can’t.” Allen’s eyes caught the overhead glow of the store’s OPEN sign. “If we pull her out before it’s done, the alliance will never trust her. She’s gone too deep, becoming what she needed to be in order to survive. She has to give us Opti on a platter before anyone in the alliance will trust her to resume her full responsibilities. She either sees it to the end and makes the decision to side with the alliance—with her still oblivious about her beginnings—or she goes down with Opti. That goes for you, too.”
“Me!”
Allen’s chin lifted in anger. “Peri got a few points for freeing you, but you didn’t take her back to the alliance. You ran off with her and the daughter of the head of the alliance, not to mention their best cleaner.”
“So she could finish it,” Silas said, remembering his fruitless conversations with Fran.
“Is that what you told Fran?” Allen said mockingly. “She buying it? All they see is you not doing what they sent you to do.”
Silas’s head thumped back against the hard brick. He had refused to bring Peri in as a traitor, yes, and now the alliance suspected him as well.
“You lost your cred.” Allen glanced at the storefront and then the damp parking lot. “The alliance trusts me more than you. And unlike me, you don’t have a golden parachute.”