with you were just kissing your ass because you were the Chairman Heir. Anyway, he’d gone to Angel’s with a group of other Executive guys. Getting laid at Angel’s was practically a rite of passage for an Executive boy, but Nate had been more interested in getting drunk when the press wasn’t around to snap embarrassing pictures.
He’d been well on his way to achieving this aim when he’d caught sight of Kurt, prowling through the crowd in a palpable cloud of sexual energy. One glance was all it took to see that he was trolling for customers, but like any born-and-bred Basement-dweller, he always kept his eyes open for unexpected opportunities. Like when he’d bumped into a very drunk Executive douche bag and carefully relieved the man of his wallet.
The moment Kurt had slipped the wallet into a gap in his clothing—no doubt a secret compartment sewn in for just such occasions—his eyes had met Nate’s. If Nate were being a responsible Executive, he’d have stormed over and demanded Kurt return the wallet. Instead, he froze like a rabbit, immediately and completely fascinated. A slow, wicked smile spread over Kurt’s lips, and Nate had to grab the back of the chair he was sitting in to keep himself in place. Here in the Basement, he could let loose a lot of his inhibitions, but his companions weren’t so drunk they wouldn’t notice if he made a pass at a guy. And since they weren’t really his friends, that would be a bad, bad thing.
Without meaning to, Nate licked his lips. The spark in Kurt’s eye said he saw the gesture as an invitation. Nate swallowed hard, wishing he could make a true invitation. But though he tended to recklessness, he wasn’t a complete moron and had no wish to experience the horror of “reprogramming.”
Most likely, Kurt knew exactly who Nate was and knew better than to approach. He merely winked at Nate and moved off into the crowd. Nate hadn’t been sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.
That might have been the end of their acquaintance, if one of the club’s hostesses hadn’t glommed onto him a while later and started flirting. Naturally, Nate wasn’t interested, but the girl was persistent, and so sexy Nate’s companions started looking at him funny for refusing her. He’d given in because he couldn’t afford not to, but she’d surprised the hell out of him by leading him to a room that was already occupied—by Kurt, who’d paid her to catch Nate’s eye and lure him upstairs.
That had been one of the best nights of Nate’s life, made all the better by the knowledge that he was doing the forbidden and getting away with it. There was an undeniable chemistry between him and Kurt, something Nate
Angel’s would always be a favorite for Nate because it was where he’d met Kurt. But it was also a place where money, both company scrip and real dollars, changed hands in epic quantities. If Kurt had arranged passage out of Paxco, he’d most likely arranged it at Angel’s. So tonight, Nate was going there, as he had countless times before since his first trip at the age of fourteen. With one big difference.
This time, he was going alone.
Nate looked at himself in the mirror and wondered if he’d gone completely crazy. Nobody sane would think of doing what he was about to do.
The eyes that stared back at him from the mirror weren’t his.
Well, yes, they were. They just didn’t look like it.
Pale blue contacts leached most of the color from his eyes, and the kohl he used to line them made them look paler still, almost inhuman. His naturally dark hair was hidden under a white-blond wig, and his eyebrows and eyelashes were painted soot black with more kohl. A thin, blue-white powder cooled and lightened his warm skin tone, and his black lipstick didn’t go all the way to the edges of his lips, making his mouth into a harsh black slash in his face.
He couldn’t do anything to change his basic bone structure, of course, but a couple of pouches artificially filled out his cheeks, giving him dimples, and the changes in his coloring were so striking that even his own mother wouldn’t recognize him. If his own mother were around, that is. She and the Chairman had had a falling out almost ten years ago, and she’d withdrawn from public life, entering a fancy Executive “retreat” that bore a disturbing resemblance to a medieval cloister. Nate hadn’t seen her since. Apparently, staying away from the Chairman was more important to her than maintaining a relationship with her son.
Regardless, no one looking at him would guess that he was really the Chairman Heir in disguise. Right now, he was a different person. He was the Ghost, a Basement alter ego Kurt had helped him create. Well, bullied him into creating, at least at first. Nate had balked at just about every aspect of the costume. But he’d wanted to go to the Basement incognito more than he’d wanted to protect his dignity, and in this getup, he fit right in. Nate had the amusing thought that if his own staff should catch sight of him, he’d be detained as an intruder. But then he decided the thought wasn’t so amusing—if anyone should find out about his alter ego, his days of slipping away to the Basement would be over.
Dressed in black leather and silver chains that made his artificial skin tone look even paler and more sickly, Nate used the escape route he and Kurt had devised together to sneak out of his apartment without anyone knowing.
The escape started with a long slide down a laundry chute—one that was a lot less nerve-wracking when Kurt was waiting at the bottom. Tonight, Nate just had to hope no one was dawdling in the laundry room at one in the morning.
Nate hit the pile of laundry at the bottom of the chute with a soft “oof” he couldn’t suppress. The landing stole his breath for a moment, but he was relieved to find himself in a pitch-dark room. There was no one around to witness his escape.
When he caught his breath, Nate scrambled out of the laundry and edged his way to the door. From there, it was a long, nerve-wracking trek to the service stairs, and an even longer climb in the dim, echoing stairway down to the parking level. The only good news was that no one in their right mind used a stairway in a high-rise— especially at one in the morning—unless absolutely necessary.
Nate couldn’t set foot on the street in his disguise. Theoretically, Basement-dwellers could roam the city as freely as Executives and Employees, but in practice they tended to stay in the Basement. You could sometimes see them in their flamboyant outfits in the neighborhoods that bordered the Basement, but you’d certainly never see them in the streets of lower Manhattan, in the territory of the cream of Executive society. Even if he wasn’t immediately detained, he’d be
But he couldn’t just commandeer his own car to drive out into the city. He’d have to use his parking pass to get in and out of the garage, and the activity would be logged for curious eyes to see. Which left him no alternative but to be a little … creative.
As a general rule, most people of the Employee class couldn’t afford to own gas-fueled vehicles, so they used public transportation. However, one of the men who worked the front desk at Nate’s building owned a motorcycle—an ancient Ducati he had inherited from his grandfather—that he doted on like a favorite pet. Thinking he might enjoy taking a joyride someday, Nate had persuaded Kurt to steal the man’s keys and make copies, a task that had been child’s play for Kurt’s nimble fingers. They never had taken that ride together, but Nate still had the keys. He figured it wasn’t stealing, as long as he brought the bike back in one piece. Besides, being on the bike would give him an excuse to wear a helmet and cover the most obvious parts of his disguise.
The bike had an obviously nonstandard storage compartment strapped awkwardly to the back. Nate removed his chain-laden leather jacket and stuffed it in the compartment, leaving himself in a plain black T-shirt and black leather pants. Still noticeably out of place in this neighborhood, but probably in the dark and on the move it wouldn’t draw too much attention, as the aggressive chains would.
Face and hair hidden by the helmet, Nate edged the motorcycle out of the parking garage. If anyone checked the records, they might well question the bike’s owner about why he’d taken the bike out when he was supposed to be on duty, but no one would guess Nate had taken it. No one would know he hadn’t remained safely asleep in his bed.
Maybe he was taking caution to the point of paranoia, but Nate decided not to drive the motorcycle all the way to the Basement. Instead, he pulled into a parking space on the street about three blocks
