I shook my head. “I warned you.”
“You did.”
At least he already knew I was always right.Mostly.“Okay. More importantly—why have we stopped?”
Nex looked around, and I saw him feel it for the first time—he’d been moving too fast to realize it prior. His eyes glazed over, and his gaze darted off.
“Oh no,” he said softly, as I walked over to the woman.
She was still holding the clothing, clearly meant for me—and I’d rather wear almost anything than the hospital gown I’d been trapped in for days. “What?” I asked him over my shoulder, pulling the cleanly pressed shirt on.
“The ETA we had was tied to the final bidding. We’re already at Vermeil.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking quickly. “What’s that change?”
“There are four other yachts, comparable in size to this one, in the harbor. Several contain armed helicopters, two submersibles, one with a visible drone bay, and another with a signal-masked skiff.”
“Shit.”
“Yes. They came armed—and ready to play. There’s a . . . a . . . test later.”
I tugged the leggings that matched the shirt up. “That sounds like a euphemism.”
“It is. He’s . . . showing you off.”
That made me pause. “How much data did you give him?”
“Enough for him to think his experiment worked.”
I finished pulling on the leggings much more slowly, as Nex’s attention waxed and waned, while he went through data.
“But, it didn’t—did it?” I pressed.
He returned to me and shook his head. “No. I deleted everything I could and created a recursive virus to slowly degrade the rest.”
“Then why do you look so nervous?”
“Because you’re supposed to be compliant now.” He picked up the tablet from the woman’s hands. “That’s what she was trying to dial up. Your behavioral quotient.”
I triple-blinked. “Define that?”
“This woman was supposed to collect you and take you to the hair salon on board here. They’re going to clean you up, and then show you off to the bidders this afternoon.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “So why are you making that face?”
“Because compliant is the one thing you are definitely not,” he said, looking at me with a mixture of love and concern.
I stepped up to him and caught his head in my hands. “I’m a woman. I can fake it,” I promised him.
“Are . . . you . . . sure?” he asked me—and I let my face go as slack as the woman whose bearing I’d just hijacked.
Every time I’d waited at the DMV for hours without explanation.
Every time I’d smiled through a dentist cleaning while they scolded me for not flossing.
Every time a man explained blockchain, Nietzsche, or the importance of his fantasy football draft?—
I channeled all of it.
