The Beam: Season Two by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant Page A

articulation and his ability to get what he wanted using his words, but Kai was running laps around him. He wondered at the situations she’d had to talk her way into and out of over the years.  
    He said nothing, waiting to see what Kai would do next. Her eyes had sharpened, but when he didn’t return fire, they softened. Again, she stepped forward. This time, she put her small hand on his chest. She looked at the hand then turned her beautiful, strangely vulnerable face up to his.  
    “Look,” she said. “Of course we need to talk. But Doc has already had his reassignment — burning through not only his stashed savings, but also the entirety of my new position’s advance credit bonus, that asshole — and he’s safe. Nobody is asking about Thomas Stahl anymore because he’s dead. He’s off the grid, off The Beam. I assume his entire apartment has been scrubbed, someone got his stuff or it was liquidated, and his files are rubbed from existence. It’s handled.”  
    “I feel uncomfortable even discussing this out loud,” said Nicolai, looking around his dead apartment with its unresponsive canvas.  
    Kai leaned closer and kissed his neck. “So don’t say it out loud. Let it go.”  
    “Kai…”
    “What?” Her hands circled him. It was kind of like a hug, but with obvious ulterior motives. It was the kind of embrace she could almost play off as friendly, except that the right parts of her body were coincidentally pressing against the right parts of his.  
    “This is a dangerous game we’re playing,” he said.
    “Mmm-hmm.” Mouth at his collarbone. Breath warm and moist.  
    “I invited you over so that we could compare notes,” he added.
    Kai’s hand slid down Nicolai’s front, the tips of her fingers settling an inch under the top of his belt. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”  
    Under her fingers, Nicolai continued to respond. Apparently, he did need the release. Apparently, only his top half was concerned about Doc and conspiracies. His lower half was pointing in the direction it wanted to go like the needle of a compass. Then, as if following its instructions, Kai looked over her shoulder. At the bed.  
    “Come on,” she whispered. “Your canvas is off. Let’s pretend to be cave people.”  
    Nicolai swallowed.  
    A small smile lit her lips. She began to saunter backward, holding his hands until his arms were stretched straight between them. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She paused then pouted. “Yes?”  
    “You didn’t lock the door,” said Nicolai, nearing surrender.  
    “Only cave people lock doors.” Another two steps backward into the bedroom. “Come over here, and drag me around by my hair. Then we can marvel at fire.”  
    Nicolai walked the other way, toward the apartment’s front door, to lock it. The canvas normally handled it for him, but he could also turn it manually, just as he could turn the knob.
    “Be quick,” she purred.  
    Kai’s footfalls vanished behind him as Nicolai crossed the front room, suddenly aware of his hurry. But a step from the deadbolt, there was a knock at the door.  
    Nicolai froze.  
    After a respectful pause, the knock repeated.  
    Nicolai felt paralyzed. No visitor would knock on a door. Not like that. It was the kind of knock he remembered from childhood, back when the doors across society’s upper tiers weren’t all ID-responsive.  
    “Hello?” he said.  
    “Good afternoon, Nicolai,” said a somewhat muted voice on the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”
    It was Micah Ryan.

Chapter 8

    Leo looked down and watched his tapping foot with fascination. He was wearing sandals like a good hippie, and the rug on the floor had been hand-woven just a few prehistoric houses away. His foot’s tapping made a sound on it like a beater against a hanging rug, only faster. Part of him wanted to draw a comparison between big and small things (rapid foot on small rug versus slow beater on large rug),