“Hopefully none of these are deep enough to need stitches,” Campbell said, taking a seat on the stool and unwrapping Cassidy’s feet. “I know you can’t talk about the mission. But did anyone else get hurt?”

  “No one who didn’t deserve it,” she answered as Campbell doused a cotton ball in a cleaning solution and wiped it gently over the bloody gouges. Cassidy did her best not to react with laughter. Despite the soreness and pain, it still tickled.

  “That’s good.” Campbell picked up the tweezers and began pulling out small pieces of glass and splinters of wood. Four from the left foot. Six from the right. Cassidy stared at the wall, trying not to think too much. The more she thought, the harder it would be for her scrubber to get the memories out. She already had enough fragmentation floating around in her mind. She didn’t need to add any more.

  “Nothing too bad,” Campbell said, removing the last splinter from Cassidy’s foot. “I’ll gel and wrap it, and it’ll be good as new in a couple of days.”

  “Thank you,” Cassidy replied. “I hate when Singh has to clean up my mess.”

  “But not when I have to clean up your mess?”

  “Feet are a little easier to work with than memories. You have to take out a few splinters. He’d need to invent an entire accident. And if he couldn’t...” She trailed off. There was only one other option if a repo was too badly damaged. That’s why they tried not to use anyone who might be missed.

  “I think feet are a lot easier to work with.” Campbell replied, pressing the healing gauze with its anesthetic components to Cassidy’s feet.

  She sighed as the gauze stuck easily to her feet, sending an icy heat through her nervous system. “That feels so much better already.”

  “I can’t believe you were walking around on them like that. You should have had your liaison carry you.”

  “I’ve got a high pain tolerance.” She didn’t say the rest of her thoughts out loud. After where she had just been, the last thing she wanted was for anyone to touch her. Especially while she was still dressed in only a jersey. “I can shower with the wraps, right?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t have done them otherwise. You stink.”

  Cassidy laughed. “I know. Blame the captain for directing me here first.”

  Campbell taped bandages over the gauze and then got to her feet. “Good as new. Is there anything else you need me to examine?”

  The statement made Cassidy’s skin crawl. “No. They didn’t get to do anything to me. I would never let that happen.”

  “I had to ask. You know we’re supposed to return them like we found them. You know what happens if we can’t.”

  “I know. This was a tough one. To be honest, I’m looking forward to forgetting all about it.”

  Campbell nodded. “If that’s all you need, then you’re free to go. Just let me confirm...” She opened a drawer in the little rolling table and removed a ClearTab linked to the Underworld’s network. Logging Cassidy’s visit, she confirmed its completion. “I’ll see you when I see you, Cassidy.”

  “See you when I see you, Rory.”

  Cassidy stood on the bandages, smiling when her feet didn’t hurt. She nodded to Campbell who pushed a button on the exam table. The door Cassidy had entered through unlocked and opened. She left Medical, heading to her quarters.

  Chapter 4

  Cassidy wrapped herself in a towel and emerged from the small bathroom into a single room of personal living space that wasn’t much bigger. The quarters were only hers while she was imprinted. The moment she went to meet Singh for scrubbing and extraction it would be cleaned out, turned over and prepped for the next Shade. As a result, the room was plainly outfitted with only the bare essentials. A small mattress against the corner. A ClearTab on the table beside it. A small refrigerator filled with water and a few basic snacks. A desk pressed against the wall and a chair tucked beneath it. She had been left a change of clothes. A simple gray t-shirt, cotton sweatpants and a pair of panties. Still no shoes. She couldn’t wear them over the bandages anyway.

  She dropped the towel and dressed quickly, closing her eyes at the simple comfort of fresh, clean clothes that smelled like they had just come out of a dryer. She was about to climb onto the bed and start working on her mission report when the door into her room slid open.

  Startled, Cassidy turned toward the unannounced intrusion. The reaction was a siphon, an overriding primal emotion of worry that beat its way to the surface. But there was nothing to worry about. There was only one person who had access to this part of the Underworld and who could get into her room while she was in it.

  “Captain Dorne,” Cassidy said, recovering from the fearful posture and coming to attention as the captain stepped in.

  “As you were, Shade Cassidy,” Dorne replied. The door slid closed behind her.

  Cassidy sat down on the edge of the bed, looking up at Dorne. “Is there a problem, Captain? You don’t usually make personal visits.”

  “No, there’s no problem. The opposite, really. This was your forty-eighth mission. You’re two jobs away from finishing your contract.”

  Cassidy nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I’m aware.”

  “That’s quite an accomplishment. Only five percent of Shades are even willing to sign a fifty mission term, let alone finish anywhere near that many. That puts you in rarified air.”

  “I did what was best for my mother and sisters, Captain,” Cassidy replied. “They would have been out on the street without my help.”

  “Yes, I saw that in your file. Everyone has their reasons for joining the program. Yours was a noble one.”

  “I don’t think it was noble. Only necessary.”

  “Are you looking forward to completing the contract?”

  Cassidy shrugged. “I haven’t given it much thought. I still have two more to go. What comes after that?” She shrugged. “It’s bad protocol to think too much about things like that. It makes more work for Singh.”

  Dorne smiled. “It’s a good ideal to try to follow, but even the best of us can’t turn our minds off all the time and not think about anything beyond the mission. You haven’t given it any consideration at all?”

  “Honestly, no. Do you mind if I ask why you’re so interested, ma’am?”

  “You’re one of our top Shades,” Dorne replied. “One of our most experienced. If you were thinking of retirement, I wanted to get ahead of it to see if I could convince you to stay on, either on a mission-to-mission contract or a shorter fixed period. You get to build more assets into your package, and we get to keep your services for a while longer.”

  Cassidy smiled. “You came to re-recruit me?”

  “Essentially. Our work isn’t getting any easier, Cass. We need agents like you now more than ever.”

  “I appreciate that sentiment, ma’am. I do.”

  Dorne’s eyes narrowed slightly. “There’s something more to your hesitation. I can sense it in your body language.”

  Cassidy bit the inside of her lower lip, hesitant to tell Dorne what she had experienced. If she were in an adult repo she probably could have hidden the discomfort. “I’m a little worried about fractals,” she admitted.

  “You’re experiencing feedback?” Dorne asked, suddenly concerned. “When did it start?”

  “I don’t think it was feedback,” Cassidy replied. “I’m not sure what it was. But it happened right before I started blasting the bad guys. They were all sitting around a large dining table, playing poker. I could have sworn I saw a Unity Mobile Interface on the table. It was only there for an instant and then it was gone.”

  “What do you mean by gone?”

  “It just vanished. I don’t think it was ever there to begin with. How would a low-level gang get their hands on a UMI? And what would they do with it? I wanted to just forget about it but I know fractals are a real sign of imprint deterioration. After forty-eight transfers, if I’m starting to see fractals, I’m not sure how many more I can manage.”

  Dorne stared at her in silence for a few seconds before speaking. “It sounds to me as if you want to remain with the bureau, but you’re concerned about your fitness.”

  “Exactly,” Cassidy said. “Before today, I wouldn’t have been concerned.”

  “One incidence of feedback is hardly a career-ending occurrence. I think you’ve gotten so accustomed to sailing smoothly through the shadows you might be overreacting a bit. And I’m sure being inside that repo isn’t doing you any favors in that regard.”

  “Jessica’s a good kid. Level-headed. Smart. Resourceful.”

  “I’m sure she is, but you know immature minds are harder to maintain full control over.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Honestly, Cass, I don’t think you need to worry about it, but I will mark it in your file. If similar experiences persist then we can discuss options.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Cassidy said. She paused again, trying to decide if she should tell Dorne the rest. There was no good reason not to. “There’s something else.”

  “What is it?”

  “One of the gang members, Josias. He was still alive after I contacted you. He insisted I didn’t know the real reason I was there. I took it for bullshit, but in forty-eight missions nobody has ever said anything like that to me. What do you think it means?”

  Dorne shrugged and smiled. “I don’t think it means anything. Like you said, just bullshit.”

  Cassidy nodded. “It helps to have a second opinion.”

  “Tell me something,” Dorne said, changing the subject. “Were you planning to include what you just told me in your mission report?”

  “I don’t know,” Cassidy replied. “I hadn’t decided whether or not it was pertinent.”

  “Fair enough. I appreciate your honesty. I recommend leaving it out. I have your verbal record, and like I said, I’ll mark it in your file.”

  “Of course, ma’am.”

  “If you have a chance, just think about what I said about renewing your contract and staying with the bureau.”

  “I will.”

  “Very well. I’ll see you the next time I see you, Cassidy.”

  Dorne turned around. The door opened automatically for her, and she left the room without another word.

  Cassidy stared at the door. She had fought to gain control of her emotions and it seemed she had. But something still bothered her. There had been an element in Dorne’s tone she hadn’t recognized. She had never known the captain to lie.

  Was this the first time?

  She settled on the bed with her back against the wall, using the ClearTab to dictate her mission report. When she was finished, she put the tablet back on the table and laid down. Any outsider looking into the life of a Shade would think it strange for her to waste what little time she had before extraction on sleeping.

  But it was the only time she ever had a chance to dream.

  Chapter 5

  The door to Singh’s workroom slid open and Cassidy entered. She found Singh already positioned at his workstation, eyes locked on the large display in front of him while his hands moved in open space. Without being able to see the screen, the activity made the technician appear as though he were trying to cast a spell. While Cassidy knew that technically wasn’t the case, scrubbing remained a lot like magic.

  “Cassidy,” Singh said without looking at her. “Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  He continued manipulating the data on the screen, pausing a couple of times to rub at the thin mustache on his narrow face while Cassidy hopped into the chair on the other side of the workstation. It was already slightly reclined and would need to go flat in order to place her head between the electrodes, which jutted out of a large black machine positioned behind the chair. Thick wires ran from the machine to Singh’s desk and a second computer that ran the scrubbing interface. A high-resolution screen lay flat against the ceiling over the chair, currently emitting a soft yellow light that was supposed to help calm her mind.

  “Running late today?” Cassidy asked. Sitting, she couldn’t see Singh at all past the opaque back of the screen. Like everything else in the Underworld, the setup was intentional.

  “A little. I had a corruption this morning,” he explained, his voice strained.

  Cassidy froze. Her instructors had stressed the dangers of corruption multiple times throughout her training because it was the greatest danger a Shade could face outside of repo death. Curiosity about the host repo was natural, especially when shadowing someone an agent found especially intriguing or mysterious, or when an extended recall had the potential to break open a case. But digging deeper into foreign memories without a trigger was risky business. Every memory that was forced into the imprint created local residual fragments that scrubbers like Singh had to manually remove. And every one of those fragments had a much higher risk of becoming a full-on fractal. If too many fractals mingled with the imprint the entire thing became too much of a tangled mess to unwind. The imprint could only handle so much fault tolerance before it became fully corrupted.

  The outcome was doubly sad. The Shade couldn’t be extracted. The repo couldn’t survive with a permanent imprint. Both had to be destroyed.

  “I’m sorry,” Cassidy said. Forced deletion was the hardest part of a scrubber’s job. “Did you know the Shade for long?”

  “Six missions,” Singh replied.

  “Too few.”

  “I agree. I’m sure you won’t have any issues. You’ve mastered the art of self control.”

  “And self-preservation. I don’t want to go out that way.”

  Singh was silent while he finished his current task. Then he stood and circled the workstation. “Is this the youngest repo you’ve shadowed?”

  “No. I was imprinted to a seven year old boy once. I don’t remember the exact details, of course. Drug smuggling, I think.” The only memories of missions Cassidy was permitted to keep were experiences the scrubbers like Singh judged valuable for future work. Like how to kill two adult men with a pencil as a seven year-old. “It was before your time. I was paired with Hajime back then.”

  “Hajime retired fifteen years ago. How long have you been doing this, Cassidy?”

  “You aren’t supposed to ask.”

  “You don’t have to answer.” Singh took her left wrist, holding it gently while he clamped it to the arm of the chair. He leaned over her to do the same to the right.

  “I don’t even know for sure. Forty-eight missions. Two per year, sometimes three. Sometimes none. I’m on my second round of support staff, but Dorne has been captain the entire time, and in my memories she hasn’t aged a day.”

  “That’s our work,” Singh said, crouching to strap her legs down.

  “If I had to guess. Probably around thirty years.”

  “A long time.”

  “Do you know any Shades that have been operating longer?”

  “You aren’t supposed to ask me that,” Singh said, straightening up again.

  “You don’t have to answer.”

  “Only one,” he replied.

  Cassidy didn’t ask if the Shade was still active. That was too far out of bounds for Singh to answer, and they were already testing the limits of protocol. “There could be others, with other techs.”

  “I’m sure there are.” He reached back behind the display and picked up an open box. He lifted a small white disc from it and stuck it to her forehead. Another went on her neck. “Excuse my reach,” he said before sticking his hand under the top of her shirt to put one of the remote sensors over her heart. It didn’t bother Cassidy. She already knew it was coming.

  He returned to the display, staying on his feet so she could see his head over the screen. He looked down at the sensor output and then back at her. “Your vitals are all good. You’re cleared for scrubbing and extraction. I’m going to flatten you out.”

  Cassidy couldn’t see his hand activating the chair behind the screen, but it began to change position, the top half reclining, the bottom sliding forward. Once it had flattened, the entire thing slid up toward the electrodes, placing them on either side of her head. The two wands shifted position, moving closer to her temples. Small needles poked into her flesh just deep enough to draw a single drop of blood.

  “Alignment is good. You know what to do.”

  Cassidy resisted the urge to smile. At this point, she wasn’t supposed to do anything but lay totally still.

  The screen that had been over her head was now directly in front of her eyes. It began to slowly morph through an array of colors, the pattern designed to lull the brain into a less defensive state. It started working almost immediately, aided by her familiarity and comfort with the process. The edges of the screen began to fade away, the part of the ceiling visible in her peripheral vision vanishing as her focus collapsed.

  “Dorne told me you were concerned about a fractal slipping into your imprint,” Singh said after a few seconds. Or was it a few minutes? “I’ll run a scan for it to see if it’s an issue.”

  Cassidy didn’t respond. The colors flashed in front of her eyes until she was suddenly back on the street in Old Town, moments before the traffickers grabbed her.

  “You don’t need this,” Singh said.

  He was present in the memory, standing in the street to observe the kidnapping. A moment later, the entire memory sped up. The van ride back to the Hell Motel, Donnie and Josias bringing her up to her cell and throwing her in there while she screamed and cried and pretended to be scared. The rest of the time she listened intently to the words and noises beyond her cage and then to the sights and sounds of the activity in the restaurant. Two weeks sped by in a matter of minutes and Singh was there for all of it, always somewhere in the frame. Sitting on her bed, standing in the corner, observing from a distance.

  The memories slowed down a few times while Singh reviewed them for potentially valuable experience. He ran through her entire mission resolution in regular time, marking most of it for preservation. The entire memory stopped when he arrived at the part where she saw the UMI. He scrubbed forward and reversed over it multiple times.