Only, I’m not supposed to be that girl. To borrow a phrase from Hart: It’s not like that anymore.
Which means I can’t make the same choices I used to make.
I have to tell someone.
But telling Hart means trusting him, believing him. Just as the message implied I shouldn’t. The reminder is frantic, a hysterical voice buried alive in my head and clawing for the surface.
I swallow. This was supposed to be different. Milo said it was different, and Milo doesn’t believe in anything or anyone.
Except for me.
Well, he believes in my abilities, which might as well be the same thing. This is who I am now, right? I have to tell someone.
I put both hands on my desk, force myself to stand. My legs tremble and I push them straight, straighter. I’m almost to the door before I stop shaking and I feel a little more like myself when I see Hart in the hallway. He’s waiting for the main elevator—off to meet a client?—and talking on his cell. At the sound of my footsteps, he turns and I stop.
I clear my throat. “I need to show you something.”
Hart’s eyes narrow. “I’ll call you later,” he says and punches a button on the iPhone. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head and motion for him to follow me, trailing back to my workstation on spongy joints. I jam my thumb toward the computer screen. “Take a look.”
He bends down, inhales hard. “When did you get this?”
“I’ve been getting them since I arrived, but I just now figured out the message portion.” I chew the skin next to my thumb again and study the white tile under my feet. I don’t know how they keep it so spotless here. “The link . . . the link says he had a BioFutures pacemaker. That it kept malfunctioning.”
Hart goes still. “You followed the link? You know better than that.”
“Like I’m going to ignore that message.”
Hart shoots me an annoyed look and I glare right back. I know what he’s getting at. I’m supposed to trust him and Looking Glass, and two seconds after our little heart-to-heart, I’m clicking links designed to freak me out or infect my computer with a virus.
Or tell me the truth.
“It’s okay.” Hart sighs like it isn’t though. “Trust takes time,” he says quietly, eyes going from geek to geek, checking to see if anyone’s paying attention. “I can see why you’d follow the link.”
“What do we do now?”
“Nothing. I’ll take care of it.” Hart puts one hand on my shoulder. “You did great, Wick. Thanks for showing me this.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?” I whisper. “I have history with that man. You know that.”
Hart stares at me. “You actually think you were involved in Bay’s death?”
“Why would someone send me that message? How do I know that—”
“You weren’t behind the malfunction. Look, I’m not going to lie. We don’t work for BioFutures because we’re being generous. They pay us and they pay us well. We’re a business. We fill a need and that’s how we stay in business, but just because we’re contracted to them doesn’t mean we’re responsible for every malfunction, and deep down, I know you understand this.”
“But . . .” I want to say, But how do I know you’re telling me the truth? I can’t say, But what if you’re a liar?
I’m not supposed to think like that anymore.
“Malfunctions happen, Wick. BioFutures is an enormous company. I’m sure there are plenty of people you know who have benefited from their technologies. The fact that you knew this man . . .” Hart stops, considers me and considers the screen, and when he speaks again, his voice has lost all the used-car-salesman shine: “What would we gain from having you do such a thing? Think about it logically, Wick. Weigh the benefits for me. We have no connection to this man. Where’s the angle?”
I like this Hart better. He’s using terms that actually mean something to me, and judging from how focused he’s gone, Hart knows it. “That’s the way you think, Wick. That’s why we wanted you. So I’m going to ask you to apply the same logic here: What do we stand to gain?”
“Nothing.” Bay has no connection to them. He has no connection to anyone besides me—not anymore.
“We can’t help malfunctions,” Hart continues. “We can help keep people from manipulating the devices’ other weaknesses. We’re helping BioFutures stay proactive—not much different from what you used to do. Bay could’ve been close to a microwave or some other electromagnetic device. He was probably a victim of an engineering flaw and that’s terrible, but it isn’t our problem. You’re on the right side.”
Hart’s looking at his phone again, tapping a text message. “I’ll need to look into the link and sender. If we have a security breach, we need to take measures.”
“I want to know why I got the message.”