behind the attacks on his bases, he’ll have his MPs grab her right away. After all, he doesn’t need absolute proof. She’s in the Army, and not subject to the same search-and-seizure protections as a civilian. Hadden will most likely have her reassigned to sentry duty inside a maximum-security prison until he sorts it out. If she tries to run, there’s surely some antiterrorism statute he can unlimber and hold her on. At the very least, it would stop her from doing whatever else she might have planned.”
Jay nodded. “Yeah . . .”
“But—?”
“It’s a slippery slope, Boss. I know she’s guilty, but if you can just throw anybody into jail that you want without due process, who’s next? If they can do that to her, then somebody could look at you or me and decide we are bad guys and put us away for years, too.”
“Like I said, she’s in the Army, so it’s not quite the same thing, but I understand your point, Jay. I even agree with you, but I don’t see an alternative here. It’s an imperfect system, Jay. Some folks’ll tell you that sometimes the ends do justify the means.”
“And sometimes they don’t.”
“That’s true, and I know you’d rather have ironclad evidence. So would I. But you’re sure she’s guilty, which means she’s still a threat.”
“Yeah. But I could be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time, much as it pains me to admit that.”
“You don’t think you are, though.”
Jay shook his head. “No. I know what I know. But—”
“What do you want, then, Jay? Would you rather see her skate? Get away? Maybe swipe a tactical nuke from the Army next time and blow up half a city full of innocent people?”
“No, but—”
“If we err, shouldn’t we err on the side of safety? If Captain Lewis has to spend a few days in detention, is that worse than ten thousand people going up in a fireball?”
Jay sighed. “Of course not, but that doesn’t mean I have to like choosing between evils. Either way, they’re both still bad choices.”
“Do you have a better choice to offer?”
Jay shook his head.
“Then I don’t really have any choice, Jay. I’m sorry.” Thorn waved his hand over the com. “Get me General Hadden,” he said.
Jay got up. He was going to head home, but his virgil blinked, indicating he had an incoming call. He looked at the caller ID.
He felt a deep chill.
Thorn looked up at him.
“I’ll be in my office,” Jay said. “One more thing I need to do before I go.”
It was her scenario, and Jay was invited, but he hacked in without using a password, brute-forcing. He’d been there before, he knew where to hit it. No way he was waiting for her to open the door.
It was the beach, with the warm sun and white sand, the breeze, the perfect waves rolling in from the electric blue sea. He saw Rachel, sitting at the waterline, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms around her legs, staring into the far ocean. She looked mostly bare from this angle, though she could be wearing a bikini.
Gulls soared and wheeled and
So big a lie . . .
He walked barefoot through the sand, listening to the little squeaks his feet made. It really was a well-built scenario. She really had talent. It was really too bad.
He stopped ten feet behind her.
Without turning to look, she said, “Well, well. Smokin’ Jay Gridley has arrived. Took you long enough. I left a hole in the wall big enough to drive a train through.”
He didn’t say anything.
She stood. As she uncoiled, he saw that she was completely naked. Slowly, she turned to face him, her stance going wide. She smiled, stretched her arms out into a dramatic pose. She did a slow three-sixty turn. “Take a last look, Jay. This is who I am. Just like I am in the RW, no air-brushing, no augmentation; what you see is a near-perfect copy of the real me.”
She ended up facing him, smiling real big.
Jay’s mouth would have been extremely dry in RW, he knew. He nodded, still not speaking.
“You could have had me. In the Real World. It would have been the best you ever experienced—the best you ever
She certainly was gorgeous, no argument. But he shook his head. “No. No matter how great you are in bed, it would have been missing something.”
She lowered her hands and laughed. “What?”
“It was all a sham. You would only have done it to keep me from looking too closely at you. Fake. Bogus. Just like this beach.”
“You’re wrong. Maybe that’s how it started, but along the way, I got to like you. I would have enjoyed it. You would have, too. And you wanted me.”
“Yes. But that still wouldn’t have been enough,” he said.
“Oh, really?” Her voice was thick with sarcasm. “What else was missing?”
“Love. That’s something you can’t replace.”
She laughed. “Love is bullshit, Jay. My boyfriend said he loved me, but then he couldn’t wait for what I was going to give him anyway and he took me by force. My father said he loved me, but then he killed himself. ‘Love’ is just ‘sex’ prettied up, a fairy tale to keep the masses entertained. It doesn’t compare to a warm and willing body lying next to you, ready to do anything you want to make you feel good.”
He shook his head again. “I’m sorry for you, Rachel. Life handed you some hard hits, but what you did was wrong. You lied, cheated, stole, and you killed people. You shot your partner in the middle of the damned Mall, gunned him down like it was nothing. That’s cold.”
“Not admitting anything here, Jay, but this Carruth was a killer, right? He had a gun, didn’t he? He would have shot whoever killed him if he could, so whoever did it—they were just better than he was.”
“Whoever. Right,” he said.
“I’m not any worse than anybody else trying to make her way in the world.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re bright, talented, you could have risen to the top on your own merit, but you got bent. You could have gotten a job at a civilian company making three times what you do in the Army, been running the place in a couple years. You threw it all away. That’s worse than if you never had anything going in the first place.”
She laughed again. “You think?”
“Yeah, I think. I wanted to see you first, but you’re about to have visitors coming through your door. It’s all over, Captain.”
She gave him that angelic smile. “What makes you think I’m on the other side of any door that ‘visitors’ are about to kick open?”
Jay shook his head. The bad guys always thought they were going to get away.
“You know, you are always going to wonder about how it would have been with us. It will always be somewhere in the back of your mind, the road not taken, the field not plowed. You won’t ever be completely rid of me. When you are an old man, sitting in your rocking chair, you’ll remember me, and you’ll wonder if you made the right choice. I know you will.”
She lowered her arms. “Good-bye, Jay.”
