The Mask: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel Read Online Free PDF

a woman, indistinguishable from any other woman in the building. But, unlike most of the others, her teeth were straight and white and her chest a full cup size bigger, courtesy of Thailand’s best.
    Sato handed the security man her badge and stood patiently, eyes lowered, as he matched the picture to her face, studying her intently.
    He returned the badge, and when she reached to take it, he didn’t let go. Her eyes rose to meet his. He licked his lips. Folds of his chin pressed down into his collar and tiny beads of sweat dotted his hairline. Sato blushed, as was appropriate, and averted her gaze. The culture demanded such things.
    The culture was suffocating.
    Even nights tumbling in Bangkok’s dirty alleys, or working a hustle in Manila’s red-light district, would have been better than the claustrophobia and polite face-saving of Osaka’s corporate halls. But business was business.
    She would remain proper and demure for as long as it took. Would keep her thoughts concealed in the same way that conformity concealed her individuality. Mother would be so proud.
    Sato pressed her palm to the scanner embedded in the desk.
    The machine rolled and whirred and chimed the all-clear.
    She bowed several inches while her face maintained a polite mask. The guard’s hand brushed her thigh as she passed, his fingers racing in and up, claiming ownership for that brief second over what did not belong to him.
    His boldness had grown, and with his boldness the violations had become more frequent. This, too, was part of the melody of dread and fear and suspicion. This was discordance, born from the ability to retaliate that emboldened those in positions of power to lord over the powerless.
    Sato glanced at the guard’s badge and caught the name again, confirmation of what she’d read the day before yesterday.
Haruto Itou,
his badge said. In spite of her mother’s best attempts, kanji would always be a struggle and concealing this weakness was Sato’s daily atonement.
    Itou was in his twenties, perhaps, recently promoted and full of self-importance. His insolence was an annoyance Sato could endure for the sake of the job; his obsession and stalking was another matter.
    He’d attempted to follow her home for the third time last night.
    This was a problem.
    Sato continued from the guard’s post to the locker station around the corner. The door was already open, a workmate stuffing jacket and shoes into one of the many square cubbies that lined the room floor to ceiling.
    Half of the lockers still had keys.
    Sato chose an empty box and put her purse inside, performing for the hidden cameras and the audio recorders. She’d never searched for evidence of their existence—she wasn’t a fool—she simply assumed they’d be there, of all places, where peasants, mistrusted by the feudal overlords, exchanged one garb for the next.
    Sato traded her shoes for company-provided slip-ons, closed the locker, and clipped the key to the lanyard with her security badge. Aside from her clothes, no personal belongings were allowed beyond the elevator doors.
    They’d check her more thoroughly coming out.
    These were layers of precaution for which she could thank legions of industrial spies throughout the decades: Chinese hackers, American government, Israeli military, corporate spies, in any combination, mixed and matched and more because the world was one big pond in which hypocritical thieving scum controlled an ecosystem where the many, many little fish living near the surface snapped at flies, squabbling over scraps, playing in the sun, blissfully unaware of what went on in the murky depths.
    Sato, too, was a bottom feeder, but not like the others.
    The security protocols focused on preventing data transmission.
    Thick walls without windows and self-circulating ventilation kept the lab free of contaminants and prevented listening devices and lasers from stealing data out of the air. Without cables leading to the lab computers, without