Free There's Only One Quantum by William Bryan Smith Page A

him. When he was slow to react, she pulled back. “Good night, Mr. Coe,” she said, still smiling.
    “Good night, Ms. Hunter.”
    She walked to what he assumed was her bedroom, and closed the door. Coe waited a moment and then undressed, changing into his pajamas. He lay on the sofa and turned out the light. He lay silently thinking about Ms. Hunter, wondering what she had on beneath the robe. There was no denying he was excited by her. In just a week, he’d become less enthusiastic about Janeiro. First the intrigue, then the threat on his life—this was not his reality. He imagined breaking it off with Janeiro, leaving her to her own world, severing ties with Steele. Maybe he could go to Mitchell and Lyme and tell them he’d been approached by Steele, perhaps become a double -double agent. The idea of staying loyal to Quantum was an attractive one. He imagined instead how it might be to share Ms. Hunter’s love, her loyalty to Quantum—how it might be to secretly be with her. She was flesh, blood; she was here.
    She was in the other room.
    Was she laying in bed thinking of him? Was she imagining how it might be to love him, be loved by him—how it might feel the first time he entered her?
    He fell asleep with these thoughts and with the irresistible sense of her in the next room—a sense that she wasn’t sleeping at all but also lying awake, perhaps thinking the same thoughts. It was some time during the night, in the din of her apt with its smart appliances and automated climate control tirelessly adjusting the heat in response to their body temperatures, when he awoke to find her standing naked over him. In the darkness, he could faintly discern the features of her body that were only hinted at beneath her business suits. She said nothing. She did not move. She just looked over him with the vigilance a guardian angel who’d traded in her wings for wing-tip shoes. Her stoicism caused him to freeze and he held her glance for as long as he could. After a protracted moment, she turned and without a word, returned to her room and quietly shut the door.
    Coe was uncertain what to do. If she were inviting him into her bed, he was certain she would have let the door open. He lay for some time, thinking about the incident—confounded by what he had saw—retracing the lines of her body in his mind. Finally, he convinced himself he had had some sort of lucid dream and it was enough to settle the dull aching that had begun to overtake him. He eventually fell back to sleep but to his disappointment, he did not dream of her. In fact, he dreamt of nothing at all.
    He awoke to morning light flooding the room and the smell of frying bacon. He followed the smell to a narrow galley kitchen where he found Ms. Hunter still in her robe, standing over the stove, turning over the bacon strips sizzling in a pan. She turned slowly when he entered. Her face was expressionless.
    “Smells good,” he said.
    “The real thing,” she said. “I’ve been saving it in my freezer for—”
    “I haven’t had real bacon since I was a child,” he said.
    “Mr. Revis loved bacon.” She paused after she said this and took time to tend to breakfast. “We were in love.”
    It should have surprised Coe, but it didn’t.
    She was careful what she said after her admission. “Do you prefer it crispy or chewy?”
    “It’s been so long—”
    “Mr. Revis preferred it crispy.”
    “Any way you prepare it will be fine.” He thought for a moment. “Did you always call him Mr. Revis?”
    “Quantum prefers we maintain a formal—”
    “We’re not at Quantum. We’re in your kitchen.”
    “I called him Collin.”
    Coe spied a pot of fresh coffee on the automated maker. “May I?”
    “I made it for you,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s synthetic.”
    He poured himself a cup. “What did he call you?”
    “Delly.”
    He gave her a puzzled look.
    “It’s short for Delilah.”
    “It’s pretty.”
    “How do you like your eggs?”
    “Any