71
The BIE escort guard’s uniform felt bulky and uncomfortable, but José Meroni’s body wore it naturally.
Teresa had left the man trussed up and snoring back at his apartment; she wished she could have at least given him some memorable sex first to assuage her guilt for taking advantage of him, but Meroni had fallen comatose in Jennika’s body as soon as they’d passed through the door. Early the next morning she had used his badge, ID patch, and passcode to enter the incarceration and execution facility.
Now she didn’t know what to do next.
Feeling inept, she did her best to assess the building and avoid Meroni’s coworkers. The story about his embarrassing arm-wrestling defeat had already spread among the other guards, though, and they made teasing comments just within earshot. It gave Teresa an excuse to pretend sulkiness, which allowed her to avoid them further.
She strolled through the corridors pretending to be a real guard, checking locked doors, nodding to BIE personnel, glaring at prisoners. She went from place to place scouting for her chance, but she understood little of what she saw or encountered. Wall diagrams helped a little, but not enough.
If Daragon came to the ceremony—and he almost certainly would—he would recognize her true identity with just a glance, regardless of what her stolen ID patch displayed.
There was no way she could get away with this. Absolutely no way. It was a ridiculous idea, impossible to plan. Oh, how she wished she’d been able to reach Garth!
She had no choice . . . only hope. She felt stronger than she ever had before, with an inner reservoir of confidence that far surpassed any muscular capabilities. And at least she had made it inside the BIE facility, though so far it hadn’t done her much good.
She needed to find the control chamber, the room from which Eduard would be uploaded into COM. Attendants would force him to swap into the body of the old woman who had bought him, using the Scramble drug if necessary to break down his resistance.
At some point in the process, Teresa needed to sabotage the routine, prevent the actual upload. She hadn’t even thought about what might happen afterward, how she would ever free Eduard. She was desperate and impulsive—just as Eduard had been when he’d saved her.
Impersonating José Meroni, Teresa discovered where the power stations were. Next to the control room, she took responsibility for the small details of Eduard’s last moments, volunteering for additional duties. Even from here, though, the odds were not good.
Behind a transparent wall, where the witnesses waited with eager or restless expressions, Eduard sat in his restraint chair. Her heart leaped when she saw him. She stepped closer to the recording window to peer in at her friend, longingly trying to communicate with him.
He glared up at her, but from his perspective, Eduard saw only a guard who was part of the Bureau in charge of killing him. She offered him a faint smile, but he made a rude face at her. Dismayed, she turned away.
Madame Ruxton had arrived, alone. Over the loudspeakers, Teresa heard the ominous sentence read. Whether truth or lies, this was how history would remember her friend.
There wasn’t much time left. Flustered, Teresa headed out of the observation deck and bumped clumsily into Daragon as he marched down the corridors. Wearing his Inspector’s uniform like a dark shield, he looked busy and distracted, his expression troubled.
Alarmed, she scuttled past him, averting her eyes and hoping to appear like a busy guard with a tight schedule. He looked right at her, right into her. She saw a flash of startled recognition on his face.
Daragon stopped in his path. She froze for a moment. Her heart skipped a beat, then another.
But he did nothing. Instead, Daragon just turned and went about his business, as if he didn’t know her.
Expecting alarms at any instant, she continued her charade. She made her way to the control room and tried to blend in while watching the preparations reach their final stages. A spray vial of Scramble had already been prepared for Eduard, and others sat on the shelf beside it. An attendant unsealed the door and entered the execution chamber.
Through another small window, Teresa saw Eduard waiting. Madame Ruxton was seated on his left in a restraint chair. Eduard turned his face, refusing to look at her, not wanting to see the old woman’s body in which he was bound to die.
He seemed so far away from her.