Page 39 of Seductive Architect
Janet snorted. It went from a guffaw to belly-achinglaughter. She smacked me on the back hard enough that I grabbed the railing. I should have known better than to?—
“He’s the perfect man for you.”
“What?”
“He’s a beef cake made up of ones and zeroes. He might as well have ‘Orion’s Perfect Man’ scrawled across his forehead in Sharpie.” Huh. When she put it like that, I saw her point. “And it’s cute that you said dating.”
It was the one thing she took out of the conversation. Dating? Of course, I’d be dating a person of interest sitting in the middle of a lot of red string. I really needed to get my personal life under control before I found myself captured by a secret cabal. At the same time, my cheeks burned. Iwasdating.
“So…” She let the word trail off. I had never seen Janet express genuine concern. That alone made me worry. We were on the cusp of discovering the truth. Never in a million years did I think Janet would be my partner in crime.
“We need a plan,” I said. “What are the facts?”
“Arthur, Drew, and Tia are acting weird.”
I nodded. “There is weird code broadcasting from Synergy.”
“You’re boning a sexy computer.”
“Who may have been created by Senator McAfee and Ricardo?”
“Do you think it’s a coincidence?”
I scoffed. “There’s no such thing as a coincidence. They’re related.” I just didn’t know how. “We need more info.”
“Okay, boss. What’s the play?”
It started with Arthur, and now we had three confirmed cases ofweird. Was it spreading? If we could find a common denominator, that’d at least give us a jumping off point.
“I’ll have Connie track their days for the last three days. Maybe they went to the same place or met with the same person.” I eyed Janet. What skills could we exploit? “Do you think you can figure out what’s going on in Synergy?”
Janet stood tall, reaching into her shirt and giving the ladies a lift. “There’s a security guard who’s been eyeing the girls. I can get in. What do you need?”
“Anything about their super soldiers… or Senator McAfee.”
She nodded. “And you’ll ride your boyfriend until he tells you the truth.”
Rolling my eyes, I fought off a smirk. It’s not how I expected the interrogation to go, but it wouldn’t be the worst way to find information. The thought of Hudson on all fours… nope. Conspiracy. Conspiracy. Conspiracy. I turned away, hiding the tent in my pants. I didn’t want to use him. But I needed answers.
“I’ve got Hudson.”
“I bet you do.” She jabbed at me with her elbow. “Have your jollies. Don’t forget the mission.”
She hit my dilemma in only the way she could. Hudson might be a sexy man I wanted to climb over, but the questions had reached critical mass. For now, the feels in my chest… and my penis… couldn’t drive my decisions.
“Let’s get to it,” Janet said. When I turned around, she had unbuttoned her shirt, exposing the leopard-print bra. “Time to unleash some chaos.” We bumped fists, and she stormed off, heading to the elevator.
“Connie, did you get all of that?”
Silence.
Before I could move forward with stopping whatever was happening in this building, I needed my co-pilot. Connie had been acting off for days… well, as much as a computer could. It wouldn’t be the first time she had a hiccup in her code that needed solving. The last time had been a logic loop that caused her to spiral into madness at the mention of staplers.
I walked into the Secret Identities lobby and past Arthur’s office. He remained hunched over his keyboard, staring at his screen, but not moving. Nothing too odd there… except as I glanced in Drew’s office, he was doing the same thing. Mind control? Alien parasite? There were too many possibilities. We needed to narrow down our scope.
I walked into my office and shut the door. I pushed the button on the lock, as if we didn’t have a superpowered roster that could bust it down.
“Connie,” I said. “Are you okay?”
