shouldn’t have just—asked you like that. You’re so private.”
“I’m in the FBI. We don’t go around discussing our lives.” She stowed the gym bag in the SUV’s backseat. “I’m sorry too. I overreacted. I don’t like people talking about me behind my back.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Alika leaned on the car next to her. “You’re a great fighter, really talented. I was going to suggest we put you up in some matches. I wanted to see . . . what might be factors to deal with before I asked you.”
“There are no ‘factors’ but my job. And I’m pretty sure going into matches would just draw attention to myself, which isn’t good for an agent. So regretfully, I have to decline.”
Sophie found she really did regret it. She would have liked to see how she could do in the Women’s MMA fight circuit, but she was sure Waxman would consider it inappropriate. In her head, her mother agreed wholeheartedly.
“Too bad.” Alika pushed away from the side of the car. “You’ve got talent.”
“So I’ve been told.” But not with men. Not with relationships, and especially not in bed, where Assan had said, “Fucking you is like banging a mannequin.”
The words still hurt, though she knew, as a professional adult, that it was no reflection on her that she couldn’t get turned on by a man who beat her. Still, it had stolen her confidence at a time when she was too young to know better. Having Assan as her first and only relationship was no good measure of anything but heartache.
“See you next week.” He raised a hand as he walked away. “I’m off to ice my injuries.”
She smiled, but it didn’t make it all the way to her eyes.
Fresh from a shower and clad in a towel, Sophie microwaved a glass casserole dish of pad thai noodles prepared by the housekeeper. She took off the towel and tossed it in the washer with the rest of her workout gear. The conversation with Alika, on top of the setback about using DAVID and her home computer setup, had left her with a dark feeling, a flatness. Tonight, and the days ahead, seemed without interest.
She padded naked across the living room, noticing the stellar sky, the twinkling lights, the ocean a black smudge in the distance. None of it did a thing for her. In her bedroom she pulled on a silky sleep tee and underwear and sat down in front of her home computer rig and fired it up, but the frisson of anticipation she usually felt getting “wired in” was gone. Tonight she was disabling the network.
It felt like facing an amputation.
“This is ridiculous,” she told herself aloud. “I have plenty I can do. I have a life.” The way the words sounded—like empty bravado—didn’t help.
DAVID beckoned, but instead of playing with the program, she saved it to an external drive as Waxman had asked. She logged into her departmental e-mail—and saw several e-mails from the DyingFriends site.
Targets had responded to her lure.
It wouldn’t hurt, just tonight, to respond to them from home. She could disable the network afterward.
She responded in ShastaM’s identity to three e-mails that DyingFriends members in Hawaii had sent. A few clicks of the mouse and inputting the e-mail addresses into her search program later, and she’d traced their computers and had three names and addresses for Lei and Ken to follow up on tomorrow.
Sophie felt energy come back at this bit of progress, and that gave her the strength to log into her network and disconnect her home computers from the FBI ones. DAVID was now neutralized and “on ice” for the review process, and she also no longer had access to her FBI workstation data—but there was no reason she couldn’t spend some time on DyingFriends, strengthening her identity there.
She left her angst behind as she disappeared onto the Internet, where she roamed free, powerful and bodiless. The world of her computers often felt more real, and certainly more comfortable, than any human company.
Chapter
“I’m in the FBI. We don’t go around discussing our lives.” She stowed the gym bag in the SUV’s backseat. “I’m sorry too. I overreacted. I don’t like people talking about me behind my back.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Alika leaned on the car next to her. “You’re a great fighter, really talented. I was going to suggest we put you up in some matches. I wanted to see . . . what might be factors to deal with before I asked you.”
“There are no ‘factors’ but my job. And I’m pretty sure going into matches would just draw attention to myself, which isn’t good for an agent. So regretfully, I have to decline.”
Sophie found she really did regret it. She would have liked to see how she could do in the Women’s MMA fight circuit, but she was sure Waxman would consider it inappropriate. In her head, her mother agreed wholeheartedly.
“Too bad.” Alika pushed away from the side of the car. “You’ve got talent.”
“So I’ve been told.” But not with men. Not with relationships, and especially not in bed, where Assan had said, “Fucking you is like banging a mannequin.”
The words still hurt, though she knew, as a professional adult, that it was no reflection on her that she couldn’t get turned on by a man who beat her. Still, it had stolen her confidence at a time when she was too young to know better. Having Assan as her first and only relationship was no good measure of anything but heartache.
“See you next week.” He raised a hand as he walked away. “I’m off to ice my injuries.”
She smiled, but it didn’t make it all the way to her eyes.
Fresh from a shower and clad in a towel, Sophie microwaved a glass casserole dish of pad thai noodles prepared by the housekeeper. She took off the towel and tossed it in the washer with the rest of her workout gear. The conversation with Alika, on top of the setback about using DAVID and her home computer setup, had left her with a dark feeling, a flatness. Tonight, and the days ahead, seemed without interest.
She padded naked across the living room, noticing the stellar sky, the twinkling lights, the ocean a black smudge in the distance. None of it did a thing for her. In her bedroom she pulled on a silky sleep tee and underwear and sat down in front of her home computer rig and fired it up, but the frisson of anticipation she usually felt getting “wired in” was gone. Tonight she was disabling the network.
It felt like facing an amputation.
“This is ridiculous,” she told herself aloud. “I have plenty I can do. I have a life.” The way the words sounded—like empty bravado—didn’t help.
DAVID beckoned, but instead of playing with the program, she saved it to an external drive as Waxman had asked. She logged into her departmental e-mail—and saw several e-mails from the DyingFriends site.
Targets had responded to her lure.
It wouldn’t hurt, just tonight, to respond to them from home. She could disable the network afterward.
She responded in ShastaM’s identity to three e-mails that DyingFriends members in Hawaii had sent. A few clicks of the mouse and inputting the e-mail addresses into her search program later, and she’d traced their computers and had three names and addresses for Lei and Ken to follow up on tomorrow.
Sophie felt energy come back at this bit of progress, and that gave her the strength to log into her network and disconnect her home computers from the FBI ones. DAVID was now neutralized and “on ice” for the review process, and she also no longer had access to her FBI workstation data—but there was no reason she couldn’t spend some time on DyingFriends, strengthening her identity there.
She left her angst behind as she disappeared onto the Internet, where she roamed free, powerful and bodiless. The world of her computers often felt more real, and certainly more comfortable, than any human company.
Chapter
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