Read The Drafter for Free Online Page B

Mantis was illegal outside Detroit because of the solar-gathering, color-changing paint that charged the batteries. Though, to be honest, most cops would only ogle the sleek lines instead of impounding the two-seater. It sort of looked like a Porsche Boxter, only sexier.
    Jack jogged around the front, giving her an encouraging smile as he got in and waited for the car to recognize him and release the controls. “Home by dawn, Peri. You’ll be fine.”
    â€œI’m fine now,” she protested, but she’d be glad to get home.
    Damn memory knot had ruined everything. She had saved Jack’s life more times than she could count, and he had saved hers more than she could remember, but as he flicked the warming engine off and found his way to the interstate, a little niggling of warning bit deep and burrowed deeper.
    She was only going to remember one past, and Jack . . . he’d remember both.

CHAPTER
FOUR
    H is head hurt, but it was the smell of electronics and polymers from the slick-suit that pulled him awake. Silas snorted, jerking upright only to groan and hold his head. He was sitting at a small table. Squinting, he recognized the small, featureless, eight-by-eight room immediately, and anger pulled his shoulders stiff and made his pounding head worse.
    â€œGod-blessed idiot,” he muttered, pushing the sleeve of the slick-suit up his arm to find the tiny puncture wound where they’d darted him—darted him like an animal and dragged him back into something he’d worked hard to leave behind. He’d been in his car the last he remembered, on the way to the restoration site. He rolled the sleeve back down, struggling because it was a size too small.
    â€œI’m not doing this,” he said, directing the statement at the watching eyes. “You hear me?” he said louder. “I’m done, Fran. Done!”
    He frowned as the chime rang out, hating that they knew his pulse had quickened. God-blessed slick-suit. God-blessed idiot for helping them design it.
    â€œGood morning, Dr. Denier,” a woman said pleasantly over the unseen intercom. “I’d say I’m sorry, but you and I both know you wouldn’t have come if I’d just asked.”
    Silas sat back from the table, thick arms across his chest, makingthe slick-suit run with stress lines. “I fulfilled my contract. Open the door.”
    â€œOpen it yourself,” Fran said, her confident smugness irritating.
    Silas’s face twisted in frustration. He was not an agent. He was a designer, a tinkerer, an innovator whose playground was where the surety of electronics met the vagaries of the human mind. And they wanted him to run a maze like one of his rats? “You can’t make me do this.”
    â€œYes we can.”
    A wave of sensation rippled over him, cramping his muscles and making him grunt in surprise. It was the slick-suit. Silas reached for the sensitive brain of it, then choked as someone tightened the wavelengths. Gagging, he fell prostrate, shaking with convulsions.
    They stopped as quickly as they had begun, and he lay on the asbestos tile floor, his anger turning cold. Son of a bitch . . .
    â€œBegin,” Fran said, and then the chime.
    It rankled him no end that he’d chosen the sound himself.
    Seething, Silas pulled himself up. Grasping the back of the chair, he flung it at the door lock, shattering the chair and damaging the panel. With a primal shout of anger, he punched it, satisfied when the light went out and a wisp of smoke trailed to the floor.
    â€œDon’t be stupid, Denier,” Fran said, and Silas sucked on his bleeding knuckles. “You want to talk to me? Tell me how wrong I am? Get out of the room.”
    â€œI’m no one’s lab rat,” he muttered. Levering himself up onto the table, he stood and hammered his way into the ceiling. The audio link was still open, and he couldn’t help his satisfaction at the