Free World Without End by Chris Mooney

followed by the small whine of the camera as the flash recharged. Upstairs were the sounds of loud, urgent footsteps.
    This comfortable, quiet slice of life, with its luscious winter landscapes and clean, soothing air was being taken from him.
    "Take a piss," Pasha said.
    "It will look more authentic."
    Conway didn't ask, just did what he was told. He relaxed himself and urinated, feeling its warmth spread across his legs, his emlarrassment overshadowed by the panicked tone in Pasha's voice. More pictures.
    Still bound, Pasha and the agent picked him up and threw him on the chair. More pictures. Pasha cut the flex-cuffs and tossed Conway a bath towel. Clean clothes were folded neatly in the corner, near the furnace.
    A phone rang. The man grabbed a cellphone from the silver tray.
    "Targets are moving," he said.
    "One van is following her, the other just broke off."
    Pasha said, "Time to leave, Stephen."
    As the van pulled out of the driveway, the last image Conway had was that of gloved men drawing the shades.
    It was snowing at a good clip. They drove through the snow-packed roads, the ride bumpy, Comvay listened to the van's tires crunching over the packed powder, his mind numb, unable to process the thoughts playing behind his eyes. Pasha sat across the table from him, leaning against the van's window. The moonlight highlighted the smooth texture of her full lips, but her eyes were hidden by shadows. The computer screens and the surveillance equipment were turned off, the back of the van dark and cut only by the bursts of moonlight that filtered in from the gaps between the trees.
    "The woman you met on the slopes is Armand's second in command," Pasha said.
    "We think she may have formed her own group. We don't know how she found you. One of our informants provided us with her name two days ago. We've been watching her ever since. We got lucky."
    Conway turned and looked out the window and watched the rolling banks of snow glowing in the moonlight.
    "I'll find out the rest of the details later," Pasha said.
    "The pictures are to be left at a locker at the airport. We'll stake it out, follow the person who picks it up tomorrow morning and take it from there. Hopefully, they'll lead to the laser rifle."
    "How long have you been following me?"
    Pasha drummed her fingers across the table. She was never at a loss for words, even in times of crisis. Pasha was like Spock in that way: the vigilant, logical stoic; every problem had a solution. And she never, under any circumstances, let her emotions interfere with her job or her personal life whatever personal life she had. No one had been invited to her island.
    "Watch this," Pasha said, and then handed him a pair of bulky goggles with earphones and a wire running into a virtual reality machine.
    Conway put the goggles on.
    A brief period of darkness followed, and the next thing he knew he was standing in a desert, watching a tank moving across the horizon. It was dusk. The sky was dark blue and full of rolling clouds. He didn't feel the wind but could hear it blowing around him. The effect was very real. It was like he was actually standing in the desert watching the sun's dying gold color reflecting off the tank's armor and Hundreds of dots appeared on the tank's armor, showing the area behind the tank, as if holes had suddenly burrowed through to the other side, and with almost lightning quickness the dots exploded into paint spills, bleeding into each other until the tank was gone, replaced now by desert and sky.
    The tank was there it had to be, it couldn't just vanish but Conway couldn't find any shadows or outlines.
    "The technology is called optical camouflage," Pasha said.
    "Thousands of fiber-optic cameras are mounted on the tank's armor. A computer takes pictures of the surroundings and using pixel replication, paints a picture across the tank. Any missing information is filled in through an interpolation algorithm and within the blink of an eye, you're invisible. The