EDGE OF DAY

CHAPTER SIX

Metal scrapped across the vinyl tiles as Rink pulled up a chair. He sat down and the chair squeaked and puffed, reshaping to the form of his backside.

"Twice in one day," he said.

Day closed her eyes and visualized a beach—a real beach with white sands and warm, turquoise waters. Beaches still existed in the southern world; they hadn't all eroded due to human intervention on the coastlines. She imagined she was lying face down on the shore, breathing in sand and salt instead of hospital sheets.

"If you keep coming to see me like this," she said, "my boyfriend might get jealous." The one-liner popped involuntarily from her mouth, but at least she wasn't grunting or apologizing or blushing.

"What were you doing at the mall?"

"Shopping."

"What did you buy?"

"Window shopping."

"Why did you ask your chauffeur droid to run a search on how to erase your movements from the activity log?"

"It's a free northern world, isn't it?"

Watch out, Day a voice inside her said. Not even an idiot really thinks it's a free world. The government tracked everything everyone did, and you couldn't travel to the southern sphere unless you were a diplomat or politician. It was the illusion of a free world.

"Why turn off your monitor and enter the mall through the droid lobby?"

So maybe they'd connected Alexia's disappearance to the bomb. Day ran through possible scenarios.

One: Someone had been to Janus, received a botched implant and turned psychotic—thus kidnapping Alexia and bombing the company.

Two: Someone had gone to Janus, but the personality implant didn't function because they already had one. Tampering with the existing implant had set off an alarm and the people who had implanted the woman in the first place had come to Janus to find her. They'd kidnapped Alexia for an interrogation and then blown up Janus to cover their trails.

Always go with the simplest plot line, Ed said. The police would angle for scenario one, which meant Day was the star role of the psychotic. It was definitely a new, kick-ass personality, just not what she'd been hoping for. Nor had she done anything to deserve it.

"All right," she said. With a concerted effort she tipped a little onto her side so she could enunciate better, careful not to pull at the drip stuck in her arm. "After lunch in the shopping mall, I checked out Janus. I spoke to Alexia about getting an implant. I decided against it and left. Today, after your visit this morning, I didn't believe someone could disappear like that, so I wanted to see if she was at work."

"Why lie about going to Janus yesterday?"

"I don't want my boyfriend to know I was considering an implant."

"Listen, Day," Rink said, leaning closer. "If you're covering for someone, if you know something and you're afraid of saying it, or someone's threatening you, you need to talk to us." His brown eyes had little fan wrinkles at the edges. His nose was long and crooked like it had been broken. Short, grey stubble peppered the bottom half of his face.

"Threatened? What are you talking about?"

Rink looked backwards, and she had the sense that Ed had silently returned. He leaned closer so she could smell his aftershave. "We'll be searching every droid and computer in your house. If you have anything to tell us now is the time."