Oh, that was plenty of time. He needed to jerk off. Then he would do it again on the plane somehow. He couldn’t wait to replay the images he’d captured from the ether. Usually he’d be wiped out, but with a second dose, he was ready to go off and play again. That woman…he needed to find that woman in the building.
Ten
Helen sighed. So many questions, not enough time.“When I get out of remote viewing, there’s a period which we call downtime. Sometimes it takes hours to get back to normal. I feel weak now in virtual reality, so I can imagine how bad I am when I get out of here.”
“Yes.”Hades massaged her neck.“SYMBIOS 2 will take care of that.”
“Have you tried it before?”
“A version of it. It affects different people differently, but it cuts down on pain and exhaustion. Different versions of it have been field-tested on the military.”
She noted that he didn’t really answer her question. Of course, it would be inside her soon enough for her to know how it affected her. What, me worry? Her lips twisted mockingly. Too late for that.
“How will I communicate with you while on mission?”she asked.
“I’m your monitor at VR, not in field operations,”he replied.“You’ll just have to make do without me this one time.”
Helen looked up sharply.“How will I know you won’t be there?”
His gaze was amused.“You won’t.”
“I’m figuring out how this is supposed to work, you know.”She cocked her head.“As I’ve told you, locating anything in RV is very tough. A trailer park looks like a million other trailer parks after all, and a building vault like the one we’ve been in looks like any other, too. It takes time to be specific. I’d have had to really explore around to find clues and even then, I wouldn’t be too sure if I had gone off somewhere else in the ether. Yet, with you present in my mind, we have a twofold perception, me on my senses and you on the big picture. How am I doing so far?”
“That’s what any RV monitor does,”he pointed out.
“No, there’s a difference. You can actually sense my thoughts and feelings, so you have an advantage over a normal monitor, who would have had to really push me to find some kind of recognizable symbol. A monitor just asks questions to guide me to sense different targets, and from there, we draw our conclusions from my descriptions. Yet, you knew exactly how to confirm the location. You told me to go to the lobby, remember?”Helen tapped him on the chest.“You said you’ve been inside Deutsche International before. Your knowledge saves a lot of time and makes our target more precise. I might be the star of this show, Mr. Hades, but I have a feeling you’re the vehicle driving the whole getup.”
The slow smile he gave her gave Helen a hint of the real personality behind her avatar. It was not just a smile of amusement but of acknowledgment of her conclusions. Deep in her gut, she knew that she was right.
This was no simple trainer. This was a man who had a whole lot of experience with certain targets, who had probably walked among these same targets so he would be able to recognize many of the places and people by sight or sound.
Hades wasn’t only her guide or monitor, but also her partner. He was, in fact, here to make sure she didn’t fail: he was her data bank of knowledge when it came to the places and experiences. Her awareness of him vibrated even as she spoke, as if the words and thoughts helped her feel out the real entity behind the avatar.
There wasn’t a doubt about the warning ringing through her being either. Never mind that he was giving her a killer massage, the slow kneading of his hands making her remember how good he was with them. She stopped herself from thinking aboutthat,scowling at him as she watched the sensual tug of his lips widening. She was dealing with a very dangerous man. And he was enjoying himself way too much.
“How’s that for insight?”she pressed on.
“You’re close,”he said simply.
“Okay, I see we have lots of talking in the future,”she continued,“with me asking the questions and you answering them.”
Are you sure you want to talk all the time? You’re very stream-of-consciousness, you know, with your thoughts jumping from passwords to speeding to…pleasure.
Helen pulled at his hands and took a step back.“I bet if I could sense your mind, I’d feel all kinds of sexual deviant stuff.”
His brown eyes lit up with mischief. “Yes.”
She sighed.“And this mind reading only stays between us if you satisfy me with your answers.”
Satisfaction guaranteed. Good luck on your mission.
She could evenhearthe wickedness in his voice. She felt the familiar buzzing behind the back of her neck and bright light filled her sight. Hades had ended the session.
She began to feel the others helping to take off the components attached to her body. Her body felt a bit numb, as if she had been running very hard. Remote downtime could take hours, sometimes days, depending on how long the viewer stayed out in the ether.
“How long was I in there?” Helen asked, leaning back in the seat. She needed a minute…maybe two.
“Three hours.” Dr. Kirkland was busy checking her stats. “How do you feel?”
