J. Robb - Rapture in Death

"No. Let's keep it close."

"Reeanna was concerned about you. So am I."

"She gave me a going-over. She's good."

"Yes, she is." Still, he tipped Eve's face back with a fingertip. "You've got a headache."

"What's the point of illegal brain scans when you can already see into my head?" She closed her hand over his wrist before he could drop his arm. "I can't see into yours. It's annoying."

"I know." His lips curved as he pressed them to her brow. "I love you. Ridiculously."

"I didn't come here for this," she murmured when his arms wound around her.

"Take a minute anyway. I need it." He could feel the outline of the diamond around her neck, one she had worn first reluctantly, and now habitually. "That'll do it." He eased her back, pleased that she'd held on another moment. She so rarely held on. "What's on your mind, Lieutenant?"

"Peabody dug up a thin connection between Barrow and Mathias. I want to see if I can tighten it. How much trouble would it be to access underground transmissions, using MIT's on-line services as a starting point?"

His eyes lighted. "I love a challenge." He moved around the desk, engaged his unit, then slid open a hidden panel under it, flicked a switch manually.

"What's that?" Her teeth went on edge. "Is that a block system? Did you just tune out Compuguard?"

"That would be illegal, wouldn't it?" he said cheerfully. He reached over his shoulder to pat her hand. "Don't ask the question, Lieutenant, if you don't want to hear the answer. Now, what time period are you interested in, particularly?"

Scowling, she dug out her log, read off the dates of Mathias's attendance at MIT. "I'm looking for Mathias specifically. I don't know what line names he used yet. Feeney's getting them."

"Oh, I think I can find them for you. Why don't you see about ordering us a meal? No reason to go hungry."

"Coquille St. Jacques?" she said dryly.

"Steak. Rare." He slid out a keyboard and began to work manually.

Eve ate standing up, breathing down Roarke's neck. When he'd had enough of that, he simply reached around and pinched her.

"Back off."

"I'm just trying to see." But she backed off. "You've been at it a half hour."

He imagined, with the equipment available at Cop Central, even Feeney would have taken twice as long to get to that same point. "Darling Eve," he said, then sighed when she only frowned at him. "There are layers here, Lieutenant. Layers over layers. That's why they call it underground. I've located two of the coded names our young, doomed autotonics ace used. There'll be more. Still, it takes some doing to unscramble transmissions."

He turned the machine on auto so he could enjoy his own dinner.

"It's all just games, isn't it?" Eve shifted so she could see the screen run with figures and odd symbols as it worked. "Just grown-up kids playing games. Secret societies. Hell, they're just high-tech clubhouses."

"More or less. Most of us enjoy diversions, Eve. Games, fantasies, the anonymity of a computer mask so we can pretend we're someone else for a time."

Games, she thought again. Maybe it all boiled down to games, and she just hadn't looked closely enough at the rules and players. "What's wrong with being who you are?"

"It's not enough for everyone. And this sort of thing attracts the lonely and the egocentric."

"And fanatics."

"Certainly. E-services, particularly underground ones, provide the fanatic with an open forum." He cocked a brow, cut neatly into his steak. "They also provide a service – educational for that matter – informative, intellectual. And can be perfectly harmless entertainment. They're legal," he reminded her. "Even the underground ones aren't closely regulated. And that stems mainly from the fact that it's nearly impossible to do so. And cost prohibitive."

"EDD keeps a line on them."

"To some extent. Look here." He swung back, tapped out a few keys, and had a display sliding onto one of the wall screens. "See that? It's nothing more than a somewhat amusing diatribe about a new version of Camelot. A multiuser role playing program, hologram optional," he explained. "Everyone wants to be king. And there." He gestured to another screen. "A very straightforward advertisement for a partner in Erotica, a sexual fantasy VR program, dual remote controls mandatory." He grinned at her knitted brow. "One of my companies manufactures it. It's quite popular."

"I bet." She didn't ask if he'd tried it out himself. Some data she didn't need. "I don't get it. You can rent a licensed companion, probably cheaper than the cost of that program. You get sex in the flesh. Why do you need this?"

"Fantasy, darling. Having control or abdicating it. And you can run the program over and over, with nearly unlimited variations. It's mood again, and mind. All fantasies are mood and mind."

"Even the fatal ones," she said slowly. "Isn't that what this is all about? Having control. Ultimate control over someone else's mood and mind. They don't even know they're playing the game. That's the big kick. You'd need a huge ego and no conscience. Mira says Jess doesn't fit."

"Ah. That's a problem, isn't it?"

She flicked a look down at him. "You don't sound surprised."

"He's what, in my alley days in Dublin, we would have called a fug – cross between a fuck and a pug. Lots of mouth and no balls. I never met a fug who could draw blood without whining."

She cleaned the steak off her plate and set it aside. "It seems to me that killing in this manner is bloodless. Cowardly. Fuglike."

He grinned at that. "Well put, but fugs don't kill, they just talk."

She hated that she was beginning to agree and had muscled her way down what looked like a dead end with Jess Barrow. "I've got to have more. How much longer do you figure?"

"Until I'm through. You can keep yourself occupied with the data on the VR unit."

"I'll come back to it. I'm going to go down to Reeanna's office. I can just leave her a memo about Jess if she's not back from dinner."

"Fine." He didn't try to dissuade her. She had to move, he knew. To take some action. "Will you come back up when you're done, or will I meet you at home?"

"I don't know." He looked perfect there, she thought, sitting in his snazzy office, manipulating controls. Maybe everyone wanted to be king, she mused, but Roarke was content being Roarke.

His gaze shifted to hers, held. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

"You're exactly what you want to be. That's a pretty good deal."

"Most of the time. And so are you what you want to be."

"Most of the time," she murmured. "I'll check in with Feeney and Peabody after I meet with Reeanna. See if anything's come loose. Thanks for dinner – and the compu-time."

"You can pay me back." He took her hand, rose. "I want, very much, to make love with you tonight."

"You don't have to ask." Flustered, she moved her shoulders. "We got married and everything."

"Let's say asking is part of the fantasy." He moved in, just a little; touched his lips to hers, just a whisper. "Let me woo you tonight, darling Eve. Let me surprise you. Let me… seduce you." He laid a hand on her heart, felt the hard, thick beat of it. "There," he murmured. "I've already started."

Her knees were quivering. "Thanks. That's just what I need to keep my mind focused on my work."

"Two hours." This time he lingered over the kiss. "Then let's take something for ourselves."

"I'll try." She stepped back while she was sure she still could, walked quickly toward the door. Then she turned back, just looked at him. "Two hours," she told him. "Then you can finish what you started."

She heard him laugh as she closed the door and hurried toward the elevator. "Thirty-nine, west," she ordered, then found herself smiling.