Version 1.18.0

  Scott

  Saturday, December 24th - Christmas Eve

  Sam came over to exchange gifts.

  I'd bought her a necklace weeks ago, before I'd fully admitted to myself what I was feeling. A delicate silver chain with a pendant that had a micro-engraved quote from her favorite book: "In the darkness between stars, we find our own light."

  She'd gotten me a first edition of a sci-fi novel I'd mentioned wanting. The dedication page was signed by the author.

  "How did you find this?" I asked.

  "I have my ways." She smiled, and something in my chest cracked open.

  We sat on my couch, Christmas lights twinkling, Eduardo watching from his shelf, and I thought about how badly I was going to ruin this.

  "Scott? You okay? You went quiet."

  "Just thinking about how lucky I am."

  Every true thing I said was wrapped in lies. Every moment of happiness was borrowed from a future where she'd hate me.

  “What I have to tell you," Sam said. "Tomorrow night. After we get through the family dinner. It’s important.”

  "Okay."

  "It's going to sound crazy. You might not believe me."

  "I'll believe you."

  She looked at me with such trust, such hope, and I felt sick with what I was about to destroy.

  "I have something to tell you too," I said. "After your thing. Something I should have told you a long time ago."

  "Is it bad?"

  "It's complicated."

  She studied my face. "We'll figure it out. Whatever it is."

  I wanted so badly to believe her.

  * * *

  Sunday, December 25th - Christmas Day

  The drive to her mother's house felt endless.

  Sam was nervous, fidgeting with her seatbelt, running through worst-case scenarios out loud. I tried to reassure her, but my mind was elsewhere. On Christopher's emails. On the conversation I was about to have. On everything that was about to fall apart.

  "You can still turn around," she said.

  "I'm not turning around."

  "My family is going to be awful."

  "I'm signing up for you. The rest is just context."

  She looked at me like I'd said something profound instead of something obvious.

  "Why are you like this?" she asked. "Perfect. Understanding. Always saying the right thing."

  "I'm not perfect. Trust me on that."

  She had no idea how right she was.

  * * *

  The first twenty minutes were exactly what Sam had warned me about.

  Her mother, who insisted I call her Diane, spent the initial greeting examining me like I was a cut of meat she was considering purchasing. She asked about my job (IT consulting, I said, sticking to my cover), my family (mother in Ohio, father passed, sister in Portland), my intentions toward her daughter (serious, I said, which was technically true in ways she couldn't possibly understand).

  "And how long have you two been seeing each other?" Diane asked, leading us into a living room that looked like a Pottery Barn had exploded.

  "About two months," Sam said.

  "Two months." Diane's eyebrows rose. "And you're already bringing him to Christmas. That's very fast."

  "You're the one who kept asking when I was bringing someone."

  "I meant when you were ready, dear. When you'd found someone worth bringing."

  Sam's hand tightened on her purse strap. I stepped smoothly into the breach.

  "I consider myself very lucky that Sam wanted to include me," I said. "I know Christmas is usually for family, and I'm honored to be here."

  Diane thawed slightly. "Well. At least he has manners."

  That set the tone for the rest of the pre-dinner gathering. Sam's stepfather Richard was a benign, somewhat bewildered presence who clearly had no idea how to interact with his stepdaughter. Aunt Catrina, Diane's sister, cornered me near the drinks table for an interrogation about my "prospects" that would have made a Victorian matchmaker proud.

  "You know Sam is thirty," she said, as if this were a terminal diagnosis. "She's not getting any younger."

  "Neither am I. I'll be thirty-six in April."

  "Well, that's different. Men can wait."

  "Wait for what?"

  Catrina gave me a look that suggested I was being deliberately obtuse. "For settling down. For a family. Samantha's been so focused on her career that she's let other things slide."

  "Her career that she was very successful in?"

  Catrina waved a hand dismissively. "Was being the key word in that sentence."

  I took a very large sip of my drink and reminded myself that committing assault at a family Christmas would not help Sam's situation. "With her talent, I'm sure she will increase whatever salary Holloway was underpaying her, once she finds someplace good enough for her." I said, smiling and catching Sam's eye from across the room. "That is if she doesn't start her own business and stop allowing everyone around her to become wildly rich off of her talent."

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  Catrina pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. "What did you say you did again?"

  "Consulting, ma'am. I went to school for Computer Science and worked my way up in software until I was ready to break out on my own." All true except I was headhunted based on a freelance project I'd done patching a security vulnerability. They offered me the package of a lifetime to move and give up my freelance company. But I left that last part out.

  Three other aunts clucked in the corner making eyes at everyone else in the room and sounding exactly like you’d expect. The cousin, Brittany, arrived late with her husband, a man named Chad who looked exactly like… well a Chad. Brittany made sure to show off her wedding ring and engagement ring set within thirty seconds of entering the house, holding her hand up at angles designed to catch the light.

  "It's two carats," she said to no one in particular. "Chad designed it himself."

  "I picked it from a catalog," Chad admitted cheerfully. "But I did point at the one I wanted."

  Sam caught my eye across the room and made a face that nearly made me choke on my wine.

  * * *

  Dinner was served at precisely 4 PM, at a table set with china that probably hadn't been used since the last Christmas. I found myself seated between Sam and Aunt Catrina. The table even had name plates on embossed cardstock. Mine was blank.

  "So, Scott," Diane said, from her position at the head of the table. "Tell us how you and Sam met."

  "At a coffee shop," I said. "I accidentally spilled coffee on her. She was kind enough not to hold it against me."

  "How charming." Diane's nasaled tone suggested it was anything but. "Sam, have you heard from Kate lately?"

  Sam's fork paused halfway to her mouth. "We had a falling out."

  "A falling out? Over what?"

  "It's complicated."

  "These things usually are with you." Diane sighed. "You know, Sam has trouble keeping friends. She gets so caught up in her work that she pushes people away."

  "Mom..."

  "I'm just saying, dear. It's a pattern."

  I set down my wine glass. "Actually, from what I can tell, Sam is one of the most thoughtful people I've ever met. She asks questions and actually listens to the answers. She remembers details that most people would forget. She's the kind of person who makes you feel like you're the most interesting person in the room."

  Diane blinked at me. Catrina blinked at me. Richard looked like he was dissociating and had been for a very long time. Various aunts and uncles and cousins blinked at me incredulously.

  Meanwhile, Sam was staring at me like I'd grown a second head. Under the table, her hand found mine and squeezed. The rest of the dinner continued in the same vein. Subtle jabs disguised as concern. Comparisons to Brittany's perfect life. Questions about Sam's job, her age, her choices.

  Through it all, I did what I'd been trained to do: deflect, redirect, defuse. Every veiled insult got met with a compliment about Sam. Every awkward question got answered with warmth and humor.

  By the time dessert was served, even Diane seemed to be thawing, looking at me with something that might have been approval.

  "He's very polished," I heard her murmur to Catrina in the kitchen. "Maybe too polished."

  * * *

  When Sam stood up and announced we were leaving, it was the most satisfying thing I'd witnessed in years.

  "I got a new job this week. A good job. Something I'm actually excited about. And not once, in this entire dinner, did anyone ask me about it. Not once did anyone congratulate me."

  Her voice shook, but she didn't back down.

  "Because my accomplishments don't matter unless they fit your version of success."

  I helped her with her coat. We walked out together. In the car, she was crying and laughing at the same time.

  "I can't believe I did that."

  "You were incredible."

  "I ruined Christmas."

  "You stood up for yourself. That's not ruining anything."

  She looked at me with wet eyes. "There's something I need to tell you. Let’s go to my place.”

  I nodded. "Okay."

  What I didn't say was: I have something to tell you too.

  * * *

  Her apartment was exactly as I remembered from the surveillance photos, and also nothing like them at all.

  The reports had described a bland, minimalist space. What I was looking at was anything but. Ice blue walls. A very malformed ugly green couch that somehow worked. Expensive furniture. Art on the walls. A giant TV and bookshelves. And the plants.

  I noticed them immediately because they were wrong. Blue leaves. Pink stems. Colors that don't exist in nature. And all of them, regardless of their impossible colors, were wilting. Leaves drooping, stems bent, looking like they were moments from death.

  "Sam. Those plants are blue."

  "I know."

  "Plants aren't blue."

  "I know." She set down her purse. "Scott, please sit down. I need to explain something, and it's going to sound insane."

  I sat. I watched.

  And then she showed me.

  * * *

  The leaf changed color right in front of me.

  One second it was blue, impossible blue, the color of a cloudless sky. And then she touched it, and it bled to green, and I was watching something that couldn't be happening.

  "What the fuck was that?"

  "That's what I need to explain."

  And she did. She told me everything.

  The firing. The static. The first time she saw the code in that beige conference room. The blanket that changed from cream to brown. The money that appeared in her bank account, not hacked, not transferred, just willed into existence.

  She told me about Greg Harrison. About finding his files not through any network intrusion, but by simply reaching in. Seeing the code. Manipulating it.

  She told me about Kate. The lie. The betrayal. The friendship that shattered.

  She gave me a journal. Months of documentation. Sketches of symbols I didn't recognize. Theories about the nature of reality. "DEFINITELY NOT EVIL PLANS" was embossed on the cover. I almost laughed. Almost.

  When she finished talking, my mind was racing. Every data point that hadn't fit. The bank anomaly that left no trace. The parking garage that got warm. The plants that shouldn't exist. Greg Harrison's fried electronics.

  It all made a horrible, impossible kind of sense.

  "Say something," Sam whispered.

  I looked at the journal in my hands. At the woman standing in front of me, terrified and vulnerable and waiting.

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m not.”

  "What you're describing violates every law of physics."

  "I know."

  "You're telling me you can just change things. With your mind."

  "With something. I don't know what to call it."

  I set down the journal. Ran both hands through my hair. This changed everything. Not just the case. Everything. If what she was saying was true, if she could actually manipulate reality, then the investigation was meaningless. The FBI couldn't arrest someone for having abilities that shouldn't exist.

  But Christopher was waiting for a report. The Director was asking questions. And I was sitting here, holding evidence that would either get Sam locked up in a lab somewhere or get me committed. Neither option was acceptable.

  "Sam. I need to tell you something too."

  * * *

  I told her everything. The FBI. The investigation. The coffee spill that wasn't an accident. The months of surveillance and manipulation and lies.

  I told her that I was assigned to figure out how she was generating money from nowhere, and instead I found a woman who was funny and kind and brilliant and nothing like a criminal.

  I told her that my feelings were real. That everything I felt for her was real. That I was telling her this now because I couldn't keep lying, not after what she'd just shown me.

  And then I watched her face close off.

  "Get out."

  "Sam..."

  "I said get out."

  "Please. Just let me explain..."

  "What is there to explain? You're FBI. I'm your assignment. Everything between us was a lie."

  "That's not true. The feelings..."

  "Don't. Don't say that. Not now."

  I stood there, watching her cry, knowing I'd caused this. Knowing I deserved every bit of her anger.

  "When you're ready to talk, I'll be here."

  "I don't want to talk."

  "Then I'll wait until you do."

  I walked to the door. Paused.

  “As long as it takes. I’m sorry, Sam. I know that doesn't mean much right now. But I am."

  I left.

  * * *

  Back at my apartment, I sat in the darkness and stared at nothing. I should call Christopher. Should report what I'd learned. Should tell him that our suspect could apparently manipulate reality with her mind.

  But if I told him that, he'd think I'd lost it. Or he'd send a team to bring Sam in for "observation." Either way, it wouldn't help her. And I wanted to help her. Even now, even after she'd thrown me out, I wanted to help her.

  That was the problem, wasn't it? I'd been compromised from the start. I pulled out my phone. Christopher's number was right there. One call and I could hand this off to someone else. Let it be someone else's problem.

  But that would mean abandoning Sam. And even if she never spoke to me again, I couldn't do that. I put the phone down.

  * * *

  I didn't sleep.

  Around 3 AM, I started reading Sam's journal again. The one she'd given me. Months of observations and theories and desperate attempts to understand.

  October 5th. Changed the blanket. Got violently ill. But it worked. It actually worked. I'm not imagining this.

  October 12th. The code is everywhere. In everything. I can see it now when I focus. The architecture of reality, laid bare.

  November 3rd. Met a guy today. Scott. He spilled coffee on me and then spent five minutes apologizing. It was weirdly endearing.

  I stopped at that entry. Read it three times.

  He asked me out. I said yes. I don't know why I said yes. But something about him felt safe. Like he was actually paying attention. Like he actually saw me.

  I'd forgotten what that felt like.

  I closed the journal. She'd trusted me. She'd thought I was safe. And I'd been investigating her the whole time. Whatever happened next, I deserved it.

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  Want to read ahead? My has the rest of book one and a bonus prequel chapter. Patience is overrated anyway.