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“Report?” I asked him.
“General consensus is that this technology is viable,” Tobias said, “and the threat is real, though Mi Won wants to think more about the effects of dumping rampant DNA strains into the body’s muscles. J.C. says we’ll want to confirm independently that I3 is in lockdown and that the feds are really involved. That will tell us a great deal about how honest Mister Chay is being with us.”
“Good idea. What’s that contact we have at Homeland Security?”
“Elsie,” Tobias said. “You found her cat.”
Yes, her cat. Not all of my missions involve terrorists or the fate of the world. Some are far more simple and mundane. Like locating a teleporting cat.
“Give her a call,” I said absently. “See if she’ll confirm for us what Yol said about contacting the authorities.”
Tobias stopped beside me. “Call her?”
I looked up from my screen, then blushed. “Right. Sorry. I’ve been talking to Audrey.” She tended to throw me off-balance.
“Ah, dearest Audrey,” Tobias said. “I sincerely think she must be some kind of compensating factor in your psychology, a way to blow off a little steam, so to speak. Genius is often accompanied by quirks of the mind. Why, Nikola Tesla had an arbitrary, and baffling, aversion to pearls of all things. He’d send people away who came to him wearing them, and it is said . . .”
He continued on. I relaxed to the sound of his voice, choosing a book on advanced cryptography. Tobias eventually wound back around to his report on what the aspects had determined. “This brings us to our next course of action,” he said. “Owen’s suggestion is perhaps the most relevant, and Ivy won’t be able to complete her psychological analysis unless we know more about the subject. Beginning by visiting Panos’s family is advised. From there, Ngozi needs more information from the coroner. We may want to go there next.”
“Reverse those,” I said. “It’s . . . what, three in the morning?”
“Six.”
“Already?” I said, surprised. I didn’t feel that tired. The engagement of a new mission, a puzzle to solve, kept me alert. “Well, still. I feel more comfortable about visiting a coroner office this early than I do about waking Panos’s family. Liza gets to work at . . . what, seven?”
“Eight.”
So I had time to kill. “What leads do we have on the corporations who might be behind this?”
“J.C. has some thoughts. He wants to talk to you.”
I found him leaning against the wall near where Ivy was working; he was chattering away and generally distracting her. I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him away. “Tobias said you have something for me.”
“Our assassin,” he said. “Zen Rigby.”
“Yes, and?” J.C. couldn’t have any new information on her—he only knew what I knew, and we’d dredged that well already.
“I’ve been thinking, Skinny,” J.C. said. “Why did she show up when you were on your date?”
“Because her employers knew Yol was likely to go to me.”
“Yeah, but why start surveillance on you that early? Look, they have the body, right?”
“So we assume.”
“Therefore, the reason to watch you is to tail you and see if you find the data key. There was no reason to watch you before Yol arrived. It tipped their hand, you see? They should have waited until you were called in to I3.”
I chewed on that for a minute. We liked to make fun of J.C., but the truth was, he was one of my most practical aspects. A lot of them spent their days dreaming and thinking. J.C. kept me alive.
“It does seem odd,” I agreed. “But what does it mean?”
“It means we don’t have all the facts,” J.C. said. “Zen might have been trying to bug us, for instance, hoping we’d go to I3 and reveal information.”
I looked at him sharply. “Wardrobe change?”
“Good place to start,” he said. “But there are a host of other reasons she could have been there so early. Perhaps she’s employed by a third company that knows something is up with I3, but doesn’t quite know what. Or maybe she’s not involved in this case at all.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t,” he agreed. “But let’s tread lightly, eh? Zen is dangerous. I ran across her a couple of times in black ops missions. She left corpses, sometimes operatives—sometimes just innocent bystanders.”
I nodded.
“You’ll want to carry a sidearm,” J.C. said. “You realize that if it comes to a confrontation, I won’t be able to shoot her.”
“Because of past familiarity?” I said, giving him an out. I didn’t like to push him to confront what he was—instead offering reasons why, despite being my bodyguard, he could never actually interact with anyone we met.
Except that one time when he had done just that.
“Nah,” J.C. said. “I can’t shoot her because I’m not really here.”
I started. Had he just . . . ? “J.C.,” I said. “This is a big step for you.”
“Nah, I’ve got this figured out. That Arnaud guy, he’s pretty smart.”
“Arnaud?” I looked across the room toward the slender, balding Frenchman who was our newest addition.
“Yeah,” J.C. said, hand on my shoulder. “He has this theory, see. That we’re not figments, or whosits, or whatever crazy term you feel like using at the moment. He said . . . well, it’s a lot of nerd talk, but it means I’m a real boy for sure. I’m just not here.”
“Is that so?” I wasn’t certain what to think of this.
“Yup,” J.C. said. “You should hear what he has to say. Hey, chrome-dome!”
Arnaud pointed at himself, then hustled over as J.C. waved. J.C. put his hand around the diminutive Frenchman, as if they were best friends—the gesture seemed to make Arnaud distinctly uncomfortable. It was a little like the cat buddying up to the mouse.
“Let him have it,” J.C. said.
“It? What it are you speaking of?” Arnaud spoke with a smooth French accent, like butter melting over a browned game hen.
“You know,” J.C said. “The things you said about us?”
Arnaud adjusted his spectacles. “Well, um, you see, in quantum physics we talk about possibilities. One interpretation says that dimensions are infinite, and everything that can happen, has happened. It seems to follow if this is true, then each of us aspects somewhere has existed in some dimension or realm of possibility as a real person. A curious thought, would you not agree, Étienne?”
“Curious indeed,” I said. “It—”
“So I’m real,” J.C. interjected. “The smart guy just said it.”
“No, no,” Arnaud said. “I merely indicated that it is likely that somewhere, in another place and time, there really is a person who matches—”
J.C. shoved him aside and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, turning me away from Arnaud. “I’ve got it figured out, Skinny. We’re all from this other place, see. And when you need some help, you reach out and snatch us. You’re some kind of physics wizard.”
“A . . . physics wizard?”
“Yup. And I’m no Navy SEAL. I’ve just got to accept that.” He paused. “I’m an Interdimensional Time Ranger.”
I looked at him, grinning.
But he was dead serious.
“J.C.,” I said. “That’s as ridiculous as Owen’s ghost theory.”
“No it’s not,” J.C. said, stubborn. “Look, back in that Jerusalem mission. What happened there at the end?”
I hesitated. I had been surrounded, hands shaking, holding a gun I barely knew how to use. In that moment, J.C. had taken hold of my arm and directed it, causing me to fire my gun in the precise pattern needed to bring down every enemy.
