Blades of Winter Read Online Free PDF Page A

his stomach. “Do you know how many Levels I have that give me the ulcers you do?”
    I stop examining my nails and chirp, “Don’t you want to see my new toys, Cyrus? Here, watch me pick up your desk.”
    He looks away and gives me the hand, like a cop stopping traffic. He gently rubs his midsection and mutters, “For Christ’s sake, Alix. You’ve worked here for over four years. You know I can’t have you accelerating your Development Schedule.”
    “Well, how about yesterday? I’d be a pile of paprikash right now if I hadn’t gotten my new Mods.”
    Cyrus says, “Scarlet, your Development Schedule does more than extend your physical abilities. It also strengthens your emotional capacities.” He’s still rubbing his stomach. “I’m concerned about the effect this job may have had on you. You know, when I was your age—”
    I cut him off. “You were blowing stuff up and killing people, just like me.”
    His hand comes off his stomach and slams the desk in front of him. “I was
not
pulling Level 12 missions by myself!” Cyrus stands up and paces around behind his desk. “I thought I was seeing things when I read your father’s name on the mission summary yesterday. How the hell could you pull the sheet for that Job Number? You
knew
it was way too high for you.”
    “I knew I could do it, and Virgil didn’t say anything—”
    Now it’s his turn to cut me off. “That’s because Virgil is a well-connected moron! You haven’t even done a solo 5 yet and you try to pull a solo 12—in the middle of Manhattan!” He’s gotten loud again. “How muchcompetition was in that restaurant besides Hector and the girl you terminated?”
    Well, let’s check the ol’ memory cache and find out
.
    One of my Mods is a government-only device called Autonomous Single Day Memory Recall Loop, or Day Loop for short. It contains a digital record of everything I’ve seen and heard during the past twenty-four hours. Yesterday’s lunch was only nineteen hours ago, so it’s still in there. I center my Day Loop in my Eyes-Up display and rewind it to the event.
    “Not sure,” I say, “but I met her grieving friends outside.”
    Cyrus is not amused. He puts both hands on his desk and leans toward me to growl, “Exactly! You had no idea how much competition there was. What if the woman sitting behind you was working with the girl?”
    “There was no woman behind me. It was two men in shirts and ties. One had a brown jacket.”
    While I continue to review my Day Loop, I completely miss what Cyrus is trying to tell me, that is, until he shouts, “Don’t get smart with me, Alix! Not now. Your situational awareness was shallow at best. You had no backup. You could have wasted over thirty civilians with that goddamn barrage of yours. It risked everything we’ve put into you, and for all you know, it took out some of our own agents!” That had never occurred to me. A solo is a solo, I thought. Then again, it is ExOps.
    “Was I alone?” I ask.
    Cyrus leans back off his hands, stands up, and paces around some more. “Yes, but only because the Job Number was designed for an Infiltrator.” Cyrus lectures me that following a Russian Level like Hector requires proper experience and training. Hector is retired, but he still has his Mods and Enhances.
    The CIA wanted us to find out who he was visiting in New York. They think Hector is freelancing for someone, and if that someone is an American, he’s probably up to no good.
    Cyrus says, “We expected
something
, but that situation escalated much faster than we thought it would.”
    “Who was the chick with the big sunglasses?”
    He looks out the window and answers, “Your picture of her told us she was a Protector, but we don’t know who she was working for.”
    A Protector. Of course. Those weren’t sunglasses; they were external optics
.
    Cyrus continues, “We’ve been trying to trace her origin since yesterday afternoon, but the Information Department hasn’t found