"Look at you, Jim." As Jim stared at the guy,he reveled in the instability he was about to create. Who knew being dead would be so useful?
On a shimmer, he revealed himself. "Surprise."
Matthias's head jerked up--and to give him credit, he didn't even flinch. There was no jump back, no flap of hands, not even a change in breathing. But then again, he probably would have been more surprised if Jim hadn't made an appearance: The currency of trade in XOps was the impossible and unexplained.
"How did you manage this." Matthias smiled a little as he nodded down at the body. "The match is uncanny."
"It's a miracle," Jim drawled.
"So you were just waiting for me to show up? Wanted a reunion?"
"I want to talk about Isaac."
"Rothe?" Matthias's one eyebrow lifted. "You're past your deadline. You were supposed to kill him yesterday--which means tonight we don't have anything to say to each other about that. We do have business, however."
So not a surprise that Matthias outed an autoloader and pointed it squarely at Jim's chest.
Jim smiled coldly. And it so wasn't hard to imagine that Devina had taken this man over and was using him as a walking, talking weapon in her bid to get Isaac. The question was how to disarm her nasty little puppet, and the answer was easy.
The mind . . . as Matthias had always said, the mind was the most powerful force for and against someone.
Jim leaned forward over his corpse until the muzzle was all but kissing his sternum. "So pull the trigger."
"You're wearing a vest, are you?" Matthias twisted his wrist so that the weapon pivoted and made a little knot out of Jim's black T-shirt. "Helluva lot of faith you're putting in it."
"Why are you still talking." Jim braced his palms on the cold steel table. "Pull the trigger. Do it. Pull it."
He was well aware he was creating a problem for himself: If Matthias popped him, and he didn't pull the standard-issue drop-and-flop that humans did, there was going to be hell to pay on the holy-shit front. But it was worth it just to see--
The gun went off, the bullet shot out . . . and the wall behind Jim ate the lead. As the ringing sound echoed around the tiled room, rank confusion flickered over the cruel mask of Matthias's face . . . and Jim felt a f**kload of pure triumph.
"I want you to leave Isaac alone," Jim said. "He's mine."
The sense that he was bartering with Devina over the guy's soul was so strong it was like he'd been destined to have this moment with his former boss . . . as if the sole reason he'd dragged the bastard out of that sandy hellhole and risked his own life to get him to a clinic had been for this conversation, this negotiation, this exchange.
And the feeling got even sharper as Matthias balanced on his cane and eased forward to put the business end of that gun right back against Jim's chest.
"The definition of insanity," Jim murmured, "is doing the same thing over again and expecting a--"
The second shot went off exactly as the first had: loud sound, slug in the wall, Jim still standing.
"--different result," he finished.
Matthias's hand shot out and grabbed onto Jim's leather jacket. As the cane dropped on the floor and bounced, Jim smiled, thinking this shit was better than Christmas.
"You want to shoot me again?" he asked. "Or are we going to talk about Isaac?"
"What are you."
Jim grinned like a crazy motherfucker. "I'm your worst nightmare. Someone you can't touch and you can't control and you can't kill."
Matthias slowly shook his head back and forth. "This isn't right."
"Isaac Rothe. You're going to let him go."
"This doesn't . . ." Matthias used Jim's jacket as a counterbalance while he shifted to the side and looked at the wall that had been cosmetically wounded. "It isn't right."
Jim gripped that fist and squeezed hard, feeling the bones compress. "Do you remember what you always tell people?"
Matthias's eye flipped back to Jim's face. "What. Are. You."
Jim jerked the two of them together so their noses were an inch apart. "You always tell people there's no one you can't take, nowhere you can't find them, nothing you won't do to them. Well, that would be a right-back-at-you. Let Isaac go and I won't make your life a living hell."
Matthias stared hard into his eyes, probing, seeking information. God, this was a head trip in a good way. For once, the man who had all the answers was off his game and floundering.
Christ, if Jim was still alive, he'd take a picture of that puss and make a calendar of the damn thing.
Matthias rubbed the eye that was visible, like he was hoping what vision he had left would clear and he'd find himself alone--or at least the only person standing in the embalming room.
"What are you?" he whispered.
"I'm an angel sent from Heaven, buddy." Jim laughed low and hard. "Or maybe I'm the conscience you were born without. Or maybe I'm a hallucination from all the prescription meds you need to control your pain. Or maybe this is just a dream. But whatever the case, there is only one truth you need to know --I'm not letting you take Isaac. That's not going to happen."
The two held eyes and stayed that way as Matthias's brain clearly churned.
After a long moment, the man apparently decided to go with what was in front of him. After all, what was it that Sherlock Holmes had said? When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Therefore, he clearly concluded that Jim was some flavor of alive: "Why is Isaac Rothe so important to you?"
Jim released the grip on his old boss. "Because he is me."
"Just how many more of `you' are out there? We've got this thing on the slab--"
"Isaac wants out. And you're going to let him go."
There was a long silence. And then Matthias's voice changed, growing softer and grimmer. "That soldier is full of state secrets, Jim. The knowledge he's accumulated is worth a shitload to our enemies. So, news flash, it's really not a case of what you or he wants. It's what is best for us--and before you go all bleeding-heart indignant on my ass, the `us' is not you and me, or XOps. It's the f**king country."
Jim rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. And I'll bet all that patriotic bullshit gives Uncle Sam a hard-on. But it doesn't do shit for me. The bottom line is . . . if you were in the civilian population, you'd be a serial killer. Working for the government means you get to wave the American flag around when it suits you, but the truth is, you do what you do because you enjoy picking the wings off of flies. And everybody's an insect in your eyes."
"My proclivities don't change a thing."
"And because of them, you serve no one but yourself." Jim brushed at the pair of burn marks on the front of his shirt. "You've taken XOps over as your own personal death factory, and if you're smart, you'll duck out yourself before some of these `special assignments' come back to bite you on the ass."
"I thought you were here to talk about Isaac."
Little too close to a nerve, huh? "Fine. He's smart, so he can keep himself out of enemy hands, and he's got no incentive to turn."
"He's alone. He has no money. And people get desperate quick."
"Fuck that--he's got a sterling record and he's going to disappear."
The corner of Matthias's mouth inched up. "And how would you know that. Oh, wait, you've already found him, haven't you."
"You can let him go. You have the power to do this--"
"No, I don't!"
The explosion was a surprise, and as the words faded in the same way the gunshots had, Jim found himself looking around the room for verification that he'd heard that right. Matthias was all-powerful. Always had been. And not just in his own eyes.
Hell, the bastard had enough clout to turn the Oval Office into a mausoleum.
Now Matthias was the one leaning in over the corpse. "I don't give a f**k what you think about me or how your inner Oprah has spun this whole situation. It is not about what I want. . . . It's what I'm compelled to do."
"Innocent people have died."
"So that the corrupt could! Christ, Jim, this whaaawhaaa bullshit coming from you is ridiculous. Good people die every day and you can't stop it. I'm just a different kind of bus mowing them down--and at least I have a larger purpose."
Jim felt a wave of anger crest--but then as he thought about it all, the emotion ebbed into something else. Sadness, maybe.