Memory Zero by Keri Arthur Read Free Book Online Page B

features. He was no one she knew, that was for sure.
    She leaned forward and pressed the comlink. “Can I help you?”
    “I’m looking for Samantha Ryan.”
    “Why?”
    White teeth flashed briefly through the forest of brown hair. “I have a message.”
    She frowned. Alarms were ringing in the back of her mind, and she didn’t understand why. But it was a warning she’d long ago learned to heed. Flicking the sound off, she leaned back and snagged her bag off the coffee table, then dug around until she found Jack’s wristcom. The computer hummed as she attached the two. “Computer, download all files to link 1045.” She hesitated, and then added, “Send search results to outlink 1097b.”
    “Proceeding, Earthling.”
    Turning the sound up again, she glanced back at the gorilla. “What sort of message?”
    “From your partner.”
    She grimaced and rubbed her eyes. This wasn’t trouble, just a nutter. Either that or someone was playing a very cruel hoax. Someone like Suzy, maybe.
    The computer hummed its readiness. She detached the wristcom and put it back in her handbag, which she tossed onto the nearby chair, out of the way. “My partner is dead. Leave before I call security.”
    The white teeth flashed again. “The man you killed was not Jack. It was a replica—a means for the real Jack to officially disappear.”
    The
real
Jack? The man was
definitely
a nutter. “You have three seconds before security arrives.”
    Her finger hovered over the call button, but she didn’t press it. Because there was something about this man that almost made her believe him.
    Either that or she was suffering from sleep deprivation.
    His shrug was almost graceful. “Call them,” he said, “but not because of any threat you see in me. Call them because of the others.”
    Others? What the hell was he? An alarm cut through the silence, strident enough to wake the dead.
Someone had broken into her apartment
. Her heart racing, she reached for her gun, only to remember that they’d confiscated it. And her spare was locked in the safe. She thrust up from the chair and ran like hell across the room.
    “Safe open,” she hissed.
    “Retina identification required.”
    No time
, her mind screamed, even as the bedroom door crashed open. She spun around, catching a brief glimpse of two men wearing black face masks, before a flash of white arrowed across the shadows. Her fear surged, and she threw herself sideways. Heat sizzled across her hip, and pain flared, short and sharp. She hit the floor with a grunt that turned into a yelp as another flash of light cut through the gloom, slicing through her shirt but missing skin. The wall inches from her shoulder peeled away and began to burn.
    Lasers. The sons of bitches have lasers
. She pushed to her knees and scrambled behind the sofa, though it wouldn’t offer much protection. Light flared again, and a two-inch hole appeared on her right. The carpet near her feet began to burn.
    She had to get out of here before the bastards destroyed the apartment—and her. She shuffled backward, then twisted to look at the door. One of the men was standing there. It left her with only one option—the window.
    She lunged to the left and grabbed her boots from the end of the sofa. Then, making sure the sofa still hid her, she half rose and flung the boots toward the kitchen. They clattered against the wall and dropped. Light flared again, spearing one boot as it fell to the floor. The smell of burnt leather stung the air. It was a smell that would be joined by burnt flesh if she didn’t get the hell out of here, pronto.
    She scrambled upright and dove headfirst for the window. Heat seared the soles of her feet as she flew through the air, but in her desperation to escape, there wasn’t even pain, just a great surge of determination. Then the glass was shattering around her, glittering like diamonds even as it cut through her skin, and she was free-falling out into the rain-soaked night.
    T HE ACRID