Chapter 20 #3
Gray carpet. Beige walls. Fluorescent lights specifically designed to destroy hope. Someone had placed two vending machines at the far end as if cheap calories could compensate for the utter despair housed here.
Alisha marched us into a smaller consultation room and shut the door. Then she turned on me.
“What part of I represent you did you interpret as please antagonize the federal profiler until his eye twitches?”
“I didn't see an eye twitch.”
Flint pinched the bridge of his nose as he nudged me into a chair. “Thumb.”
I looked at him and he rubbed his thumb against his index finger.
“That's his tell.”
My eyebrows rose. “You saw it too.”
“Yes.”
Alisha stared at both of us. “I hate journalists.”
“You represent a media company,” Flint pointed out.
“Clearly, I’m into masochism.” She put both hands on the table. “Listen carefully. You two are not investigators for purposes of what happens in that room.”
“That feels unnecessarily restrictive,” I said.
She ignored me.
“The FBI has compromised evidence. CPD is unhappy. Everyone is territorial. Nobody knows how that surveillance feed was created, altered, or delivered.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Alisha leaned closer. “Because you seem remarkably eager to give them additional material to fight over.”
That shut me up, for the moment.
She continued. “You asked for counsel because you recognized you couldn't trust the environment.”
“Yes.”
“Then stop feeding the environment.”
Damn. That sounded annoyingly sensible. Flint dragged out the chair nest to mine and dropped into it. “She has a point.”
I gave him a look. “You are dangerously reasonable when exhausted.”
“I pace myself.” His dry delivery made me smile.
Alisha looked between us. “Is there anything either of you has withheld from me that changes your legal position?”
“No,” I said. That wasn't a lie. Simon hadn't threatened me. He hadn't asked me to commit a crime. He hadn't directed me to destroy evidence. He'd given me information. Information I had not yet verified.
She didn't need to know all of it to protect me. At least, I didn't think she did. The fact I was already making distinctions about who needed to know what bothered me—a little.
Alisha's gaze lingered on me. “If that answer changes, you tell me first.”
“Understood.”
She turned toward Flint. “And you?”
“Same answer.”
“Good. Then you will also tell me first if it changes.”
A knock sounded. Ortiz opened the door without waiting. “Sorry.”
“You don't look sorry,” Alisha said.
“I'm not.”
She glanced toward Flint and me. “Cyber wants to walk through the video discrepancy.”
I straightened. “Now?”
“If counsel agrees.”
Alisha studied Ortiz. “Are they questioning my client?”
“They want her to identify whether what they captured matches her recollection.”
Alisha looked at me.
I nodded. “I want to see it.”
“I know you do.” She sounded profoundly unenthusiastic. “That isn't the same as whether you should.”
“It already contaminated my recollection.”
“Yes.”
“And if they're going to keep asking about discrepancies between their recording and my statement, I need to know what discrepancy they're talking about.”
Alisha seemed to consider it. Then nodded. “Fine. We watch. She does not answer substantive questions about the underlying conversation.”
Ortiz opened the door wider. “Works for me.”
“After,” Alisha continued. “Her bathroom break, food, and decent coffee.”
It took about twenty minutes, but Ortiz did us one better. She let Alisha’s assistant bring us coffee and snacks from Starbuck’s. They found one open at—it was after five in the morning, so yes, they were open.
Once we had supplies, Ortiz led us to another commandeered room. This one contained monitors. A lot of monitors.
Agent Ruiz sat at the workstation, looking as though he'd aged five years since I'd last seen him.
Brewster stood behind him. When we entered, his gaze landed on my hand. Flint had taken it again somewhere between the consultation room and here.
I hadn't noticed. Ruiz glanced toward me. “Ms. McBryan.”
“Agent.”
He looked uncomfortable. “I'm going to show you approximately four minutes.”
“Okay.”
“The recording is not being presented as authenticated.”
“Understood.”
“Some portions of the audio are confirmed manipulated.”
“Define manipulated.” I wanted the clarity more than anything else. Manipulated could literally mean just about anything.
His eyes flicked toward Brewster as the profiler said, “We'll get to that.”
I ignored him and kept my gaze on Ruiz who rewarded my attention.
“We've identified repeated waveform segments in audio attributed to you.”
My stomach tightened. “Meaning?”
“Identical recordings used more than once.”
I stared at him. “My voice?”
“Yes.”
“From tonight?”
“We don't know the timing.”
That wasn't comforting. “Could it have come from my broadcasts?”
“Possibly.”
“Phone calls?”
“Possibly.”
“Previous interviews?”
“Anything recorded digitally is theoretically source material.”
I glanced toward Flint. His expression had closed.
Brewster said, “Play it.”
Ruiz did.
The screen filled with the room in the building where I’d gone to “meet” Simon.
I studied the image. It was me, ostensibly. Sitting at the desk. I wore the same jacket, had the same hair, and it appeared to be from a good angle that let me identify myself easily.
Except—something about it was wrong.
My recorded voice came through the speakers. “I don't trust you.”
That part sounded familiar. I had said something close to it. Maybe exactly that.
Then a man's voice answered. “You will.”
My skin crawled. I had never heard that voice. Deep but not overly so. It was hard to get the feel for someone’s personality with two words, but it had an artificial smoothness.
The video showed me leaning forward.
Then my voice said, “I believe you.” I studied the way my mouth moved. Yes, the voice was right but the lip movements…
“No.” The word escaped before I remembered I wasn't supposed to respond.
Ruiz paused.
Brewster stepped forward.
“You didn't say that?”
“No.”
Alisha touched my arm.
Right. I looked at her.
She gave me a warning stare.
Ruiz rewound five seconds.
“Watch your mouth.”
I did.
Onscreen, my lips moved. The timing was close. Not exact. The angle helped hide the difference.
“That isn't what I said.”
Brewster leaned closer.
“What did you say?”
Alisha cut in. “She has answered the authentication question. Move on.”
His frustration rose visibly.
Ruiz restarted.
The man's voice said: “Trust develops through consistency.”
My recorded self smiled. It was small and a little hollow.
Flint swore quietly.
I looked at him. He wasn't watching the monitor anymore. He was watching me.
“What?” I tried to keep my voice low, but it was a small room.
His jaw tightened. “Nothing.”
That meant something. But we continued. The footage showed gestures I remembered making.
A laugh.
Looking toward the ceiling.
Leaning back.
Picking up the pen.
But the words around those movements didn't match my memory.
Some did.
Fragments.
Pieces.
Simon asking about why I became a journalist.
My childhood story.
Except rearranged.
Shortened.
My jokes appearing after different questions.
The voice said: “Elliot wants control.”
I stilled.
Onscreen, I answered: “He does.”
I wanted to say I hadn’t said that, but I had. Just—not there. Not like that.
Simon had asked about Brewster eventually. Hadn't he? My memories began shuffling themselves. The very sensation made me nauseous.
This was how contamination worked after all. I was seeing a version that I knew wasn’t true and it made me question my whole recollection. It didn’t replace everything wholesale, just made the edges variable.
Then this synthetic Simon said, “And you allowed him to have it.”
Recorded me looked down. “Not anymore.”
I closed my eyes. “Stop.”
Ruiz paused the feed.
Silence.
I opened my eyes again.
Flint had gone pale. Brewster had not. He looked intent. Too intent.
“What?” he asked.
I stared at him. “You believed this.”
“We believed it was live.”
“You believed I said those things.”
“Yes.”
“About you.”
His expression didn't change. But the answer mattered. “Yes.”
Flint interrupted. “Mal.”
I looked toward him. Something in his eyes asked me to come back. Not physically.
Here. Now.
I inhaled slowly.
Alisha touched the table.
“We're done with playback.”
“No,” I said.
She looked at me.
“I want to see the rest.”
“That's not necessarily wise.”
“I know.”
“But?” She wanted me to clarify why I would agree.
“But I need to know what they think they heard.”
She considered me for several seconds. Then looked at Ruiz. “Continue. No questioning.”
Brewster started to object.
Alisha didn't even glance at him. “No questioning.”
Ruiz resumed.
We watched.
My conversation became someone else's edit.
There were enough truthful pieces to make the false ones credible. Enough genuine reactions to sell fabricated dialogue. Enough silence to let anyone listening fill in motives.
It was brilliant.
I truly hated admitting to that.
Simon hadn't fabricated an entirely new Mallory. He'd curated me by using selected moments, then rearranged them to change the context as he turned facts into narrative.
Exactly what he'd spent hours telling me people did. By the time the four minutes ended, my hands had gone cold.
Ruiz stopped playback. Nobody spoke. I stared at the frozen image of myself.
“If you didn't know it was fake,” I said slowly, “would you believe it?”
Ruiz hesitated. “Yes.”
Brewster said nothing.
Flint answered in the same breath. “No.”
I looked at him.
He met my gaze.
“No?”
“No.”
“Why?”
His eyes moved toward the screen. “Because that's not how you listen.”
The answer confused me. “What?”
“When you're genuinely interested, you tilt your head.”
I frowned.
“You do,” he said. “A little to the right. Usually before you interrupt.”
Ruiz glanced back at the frozen frame.
Flint continued. “You lean forward when you're challenging somebody. Back when you're giving them room to hang themselves. You look at the ceiling when you're irritated but trying not to say something insulting.”
I stared at him.
He knew all that?