Sideswiped - Kim Harrison Page 0,20

friends,” he said as he ambled to the door. “Try not to get them expelled.”

Silas watched him adjust his tie, his free hand surreptitiously touching his side as if checking for a sidearm. Old habits die hard, he thought. Cavana had probably been active in the eighties, and he resolved to look him up. Cold War agents were a unique, dying breed. But the old man hesitated at the threshold, his gaze lingering on the defunct wristbands sitting on the kitchen counter like guilt itself. “Which one of you figured out how to circumvent the bio-based tamper fence?” he asked, and Silas cleared his throat, liking the old man.

An eyebrow rose. Grunting his approval, he bowed his head over his cell phone as he went into the hall. Silas looked closer. A glass phone? Since when did those exist?

Allen jostled Peri with his elbow. “Where did he get a glass phone?”

Peri snorted, clearly not impressed. “Pretty, huh? It doesn’t work for crap,” she said.

“Woo, can you give me a ride back to my hotel?” Dr. Cavana asked from the hallway, leaving the door open and clearly expecting the man to follow.

Professor Woo started, eyes wide as the remainder of his night was rearranged for him. “Yes, sir. May I have a moment?”

Oh, really . . . Silas thought as Peri caught his eye and smugly shrugged. Perhaps their new friend had more clout than they realized.

“Take your time!” Cavana called, his voice becoming fainter, but Woo grimaced, his pace fast as he crossed the room to slide the defunct cuffs from the counter into his hands.

“ ‘Take your time,’ ” Professor Woo muttered. “Last time I checked, that meant, Hustle your ass.” Hand on Silas’s back, he drew him to the door. “You do know he invented the technology behind these, right?” he asked as he jiggled the cuffs and dropped them in a pocket.

Silas shook his head, Dr. Cavana’s last look at him taking on new meaning. But Professor Woo had drawn him into the building’s empty hallway, his expression holding a surprising, shared pain. “Silas, I have an idea of what you’re feeling,” he said as he turned him away from Peri and Allen. “That you think your size and your skills in the labs are dictating the limits of your life, but they aren’t.”

“I fail to understand how they are not, Professor,” Silas said. “How can you possibly know what I’m feeling?”

“You don’t see it.” He shifted his coat aside as he put his hands on his hips. “That’s nice. Gives me hope. Silas, I went active during the Cold War.”

Silas gave him a questioning look. “And?” he prompted, still not getting it.

“An Asian?” Professor Woo said, eyebrows high. “During the Cold War? I never got a single task. Fully trained, then shelved into academia. Too valuable, they said, but I knew it was because of what I looked like. It was hard, Silas. I hated it, but it was the closest I could get to what I was meant for, so I stayed, helpless to change anything. Or so I thought.”

Silas let his shoulders slump. There was no silver lining.

“I know how it feels to want something and be denied simply because of how you look,” Woo said. “But you will make a difference. Trust me. Something good will come of it.”

“What good came of you being stuck in a dead-end job for forty years?” Silas said bitterly, not expecting an answer. But a wicked smile curved on Professor Woo’s thin lips.

“Milo has seniority on paper, but as you say, I’ve been here forty years. I run the place through favors owed and ground-floor knowledge.” Woo glanced past Silas into the apartment, to where Allen and Peri commiserated glumly. “I know every single agent Opti has, their weaknesses and strengths. Their needs. You think Milo has any real pull inside these walls? No.” Professor Woo’s eyes came back to Silas. “Which is very good for you, yes?”

Head down, Silas was silent. It wasn’t what he wanted.

Slowly Professor Woo’s smile faded. “Don’t worry about Professor Milo,” he said. “He can’t remove you from the program. We’ll talk about this Monday, okay? Oh, and, ah, no one leaves the campus.”

Silas nodded, but it was only to get the man to leave. Maybe Professor Milo couldn’t remove him from the program, but he could cut off his funding. And whereas Silas wouldn’t be chained to the professor’s lab bench, if he couldn’t prove his theory, he wouldn’t have the