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5.24.2004


 
BUTTE



Rift.

I'd worked with him a hundred times. More fringe than even I am, the dregs of what the IS offers, with his licensure under constant threat.

A rat bastard, but good at what he did, which was mostly kill people quietly.

You say: what the fuck, IS are about protection, not assassination.

I say: yeah, sure.

We contracted together a lot, when I was lucky enough to get a contract that was large scale.

When my headhunter offered me technical escort of sensitive corporate technology out of a country it shouldn't have been sold to, I naturally thought to tap him.

Here's the weird thing: he'd disappeared.






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ACE



Rift.


Maybe it's true, maybe there are parts of my brain still burned with the imprint of wire, maybe I have learned to store and retrieve data with a rate and accuracy far beyond what I could before.

There was no way I should have remembered that name, or matched a vague memory of a face to only a hint of that face; no way I should have in a second's glance suddenly laid memory over what I was seeing and come up with unexpected déjà vu.


Rift.


He'd had cosmetic work done. Serious cosmetic work, like bone restructure, tissue replacement. His eyes had been blue and were now brown; he'd been a thick-muscled, implanted beefcake, now he was sinewy and lean.

He lay in the car seat next to me, an easy recline, half-dozing while we waited to take our turn in another defensive driving drill.

I watched him breathe, wondered if he knew I was watching him.

I wondered if he still had wire.

And mulled over the irony of that fact that without wire, I'd never know.



Rift, now known as Recruit Agent Thom Mackraz, opened his eyes and looked at me, then glanced out at the neon-painted road.

"You're up," he said, and closed his eyes again.

I didn't need wire to tell me he'd known I'd been watching him.

I didn't need wire to know that his breathing and heart rate had picked up, along with my own.


I drove the drill on automatic. Cars aren't that different from any other craft, and I'd driven a course like this one, taken all my road and vehicle tests both with the agency and with the Services yearly, or sometimes twice a year.

I thought about my conversation with the President, and Makraz' request to room and buddy with me. Our coincidental mutual interest in long distance swimming and marathons.

When I met Rift on IS contract, he couldn't have run five miles to save his life. Strong, but nothing like an athlete, and totally dependent on implants and wire.

This morning, he'd been the only recruit to pass me on our grueling early morning PT run. He had an easy, swinging stride that looked even more natural, second-nature than my own.

"We're three hundred yards from the mark," I said.

Makraz' eyes opened again and he straightened, adjusting his tie unconcernedly as I got the sedan up on two wheels to get it around a cone.


The worst part of it was that I'd found myself liking him.

Who he had been was nothing like what he had made himself into. And I found myself wanting to believe it, buy it, even now.


"Keep your eyes on the road, Jenkins," he said, and grinned at me even as he bailed at the mark, shouldering open his door and rolling out with a flap of his jacket.

He'd kill me without thinking about it, I had to remind myself, watching him in my rear view mirror, where he'd lain for a few moments in the grass before pushing up to his feet.

He'd kill me without thinking about it, and now maybe there was a fair chance I'd have to kill him myself along the way sometime.

So there was no point in getting too hopefully familiar, too close.

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