“You were both fine a minute ago.” He exchanges glances with his colleague, who’s standing by me now. “I’m sure it can wait.” His voice is even, giving not an inch, but his hand strays, shifting from the weapon at his waist to tug at his sleeve.
I double my efforts, forcing my voice to crack. “Please,” I echo. “I’ll stay, I’ll answer any questions you want. Just go check him and you’ll see, he needs a doctor or else he’s going to have an episode.” I just need both the guards to turn toward the boy long enough for me to slip through the exit, uncounted and unescorted.
The nearer guard’s weight shifts, making my breath catch, but he doesn’t move as they exchange glances again. “I’ll call for the medtech on duty,” he says finally. “But he looks fine.”
My mind races, scanning the guard for anything I can use. He’s in his forties—too savvy, probably, for me to flirt my way out, especially when I already used the fiancé cover. No signs on his clothes of pets or children, nothing I can use to establish any connection with him, any appeal to his humanity. I’m about to go for my last resort—the little-girl wail of hysterics—when, without warning, the boy with the lapscreen sways and drops to the ground with a moan.
Both guards gape, and for half a second, I’m as stunned as they are. The boy on the ground twitches, limbs quivering, looking like he’s having exactly the kind of fit I’d been warning them about. For a quick, searing moment I wonder if somehow my lie stumbled upon something like the truth—but I can’t afford to find out. I’m just about to bolt for the exit when the nearest guard sticks his hand between my shoulder blades and pushes me forward. “Do something!” His own eyes are looking a little wild.
Damn. Damn. DAMN. Still, if I end up in an ambulance with this guy, it’ll be better than ending up in an interrogation room at LRI Headquarters. The EMTs will scan the ident chip in my palm pad, but the name they’ll get from that is Alexis. And they won’t be looking for genetags. I drop to my knees at the stranger’s side, reaching for his twitching hand and curling my fingers through his as though I’m used to touching him. One guard’s talking hurriedly into a patch on his vest, summoning backup, doctors, some kind of support.
The guy’s fingers tighten around mine, making my eyes jerk toward his face—and abruptly, all my simulated tears and panic come to a screeching halt. He’s actually starting to foam at the mouth, eyes rolled back into his head. He can’t be that much older than I am, and there’s something definitely, dangerously wrong with him.
One of the security guards is trying to ask me questions—has he eaten anything recently, when did he last take his medication, what’s his condition called—in order to brief the EMTs on their way. But his voice trails off as another sound rises from the center of the room, quickly growing in volume and causing the other nervous conversations in the room to peter out. The metal ring, the one the holo-projectors had been concealing, is turning itself on.
A number of lights along the base come to life, indicating that there’s data to be read now from the displays there, and the panels overhead lighting the room flicker as though the ring is drawing too much power. But neither of those things is what’s made the entire roomful of people go silent.
Little flickers of blue light start to race around the edge of the ring, appearing and vanishing as though weaving directly through the metal. They move faster as the sound of the machine coming to life intensifies and smooths out, until the entire edge of the ring is crawling with blue fire.
A hand on my arm jerks my attention away, my heart pounding as I look down.
The boy is beside me, raising one eyebrow. “Care to tell me when the wedding is, darling?” His voice is barely audible, words spoken without moving his lips.
I blink. “What?” I’m so thrown I can’t find my balance.
The boy glances at the security guard nearest us, whose attention is completely absorbed by the machinery in the center of the room, and then back at me. He wipes the remnants of foam from his mouth and then props himself up on his elbows. “Think maybe we should start the honeymoon a little early.” This time his whisper carries an edge, and he jerks his chin meaningfully toward the emergency exit.
Whoever he is, whatever he was doing here, right now we want exactly the same thing: to get out of here. And that’s enough for me. I can always lose him later.
I give him a hand up—the guard doesn’t even look in our direction—and slip back toward the exit. We reach the door just as a flash of blue light illuminates the white walls before us. While the boy in the striped shirt fumbles with the door, I glance over my shoulder.