Overnight Male

Of course, he thought as he contemplated his companions, it would have helped if he’d been able to amass some proper henchmen instead of the ragtag group of college students he’d collected over the past few months. The three young men draped over the furniture in his suite weren’t exactly Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan when it came to villainy. More like Boris and Natasha. Only, without the elegant wardrobe and charming accents.

Oh, sure, they said they wanted to take over the world with Adrian. And if they’d put forth half the effort to take over this world as they had taking over the worlds in their godforsaken video games, Adrian would be master of time, space and dimension by now. But that was just it. Unless something was a graphic on a game screen, they didn’t view it as a challenge. And it wasn’t as if Adrian hadn’t given them plenty of incentive. He’d promised them that once they had the world in their possession, the boys could have Daytona Beach, all incarnations of MTV, the Playboy mansion, Nintendo and Jessica Alba to divvy up however they wanted.

He blew out an exasperated breath. Where were tomorrow’s despots supposed to come from, if not from today’s universities? Where were the future Slobodan Milosevics and Saddam Husseins? It was criminal how college campuses weren’t producing tyrants anymore. Well, except for the Young Republicans. But even they were more interested these days in making sound business investments than they were in global domination. At this rate, by the time today’s youth grew to maturity, the world wasn’t going to be worth taking over. Which was all the more reason why Adrian had to do it now.

Unfortunately, the timetable wasn’t up to him, since it wasn’t he who knew the secret code that would finally put the world in his grasp. No, that was up to Moe, Larry and Curly over there. The ones currently focused on the bigscreen television, playing a game that seemed to involve a hedgehog who was dressed in large red sneakers and big white gloves, having evidently eschewed any other clothing.

Typical cartoon character, Adrian thought. All accessories. No pants.

“I wanna be Sonic now,” Chuck Miller said suddenly, tossing down the game controls he’d held in both hands and seizing—without asking permission—the controls from his companion to the left.

Neither of his playmates took offense, however, since they were all old pals. In fact, Adrian knew the trio’s friendship went all the way back to their freshman year in college, three whole years ago. Donny Grawemeyer, who was seated on Chuck’s left, only swatted Chuck’s hat and sent it flying, and Hobie Jurgens, on the right, only laughed and called him Buttwad.

It warmed the cockles of Adrian’s heart to see the boys getting along so well. And such charming, articulate creatures they were, too.

The three young men went to great pains to make clear their nonconformity from the campus cattle who did their academic grazing en masse, but each was dressed in some kind of iconic costume of his generation that indicated a desperation on his part to belong somewhere. Chuck was the typical suburban faux gangsta in his ropey gold chains and oversize pants and T-shirts—today’s color scheme was blue on brown. Donny was the self-proclaimed metalhead, his wavy red hair streaming past his shoulders over a black System of a Down T-shirt—whoever the hell they were—and blue jeans. And Hobie, with his cropped blond locks and baggy Jams and red Billabong T-shirt—whatever the hell that was—was the surfer dude. This despite the fact that the only surf one might find on the Ohio River occurred when a passing coal barge increased its speed to more than one knot.

Adrian supposed that, to the three students, he was something of an icon, too—albeit from their parents’ generation. To them, he was The Suit. A suit who went by the name of Nick Darian, since there was no way on God’s green earth he would ever give any of them his real name.

Now that his work day had ended, however—though his work day these days didn’t much involve any work—he had shed his espresso-colored jacket and tie and unfastened the buttons of his mustard-colored dress shirt at his throat and cuffs, rolling the latter back to his elbows. Adrian clung to his Fortune 500 wardrobe selections, even though his job these days consisted of little more than watching his back and trying to figure out where to strike next with his band of half-assed men. And also making sure that his half-assed men didn’t stray from the path of world domination any further than obtaining the next level in Fire Emblem. Whatever the hell that was.

Adrian identified with none of the boys. He admired none of them. He respected none of them. He liked none of them. He did, in fact, resent all of them, since they were all essential to a plan he couldn’t execute without them. Because they knew things about computers and code and other such things that Adrian simply could not grasp himself. Unfortunately, the little bastards couldn’t focus their brains on anything besides gaming for longer than fifteen minutes at a stretch.

When they did focus, though…Good God, they were magic. There was potential for them as a group that Adrian had barely tapped, and if they would just think about something besides half-naked hedgehogs, it would be they, not he, who ruled the planet.

“Dude, you’re always Sonic,” Donny said now, his carrot-colored hair falling forward as he reached for the controls Chuck had taken from him. “Gimme back the controls.”

But Chuck only nudged with his foot the controls he’d abandoned, scooting them closer to Donny. “You can be Tails,” he said. “Live a little.”

“Tails sucks, man,” Donny said. “He don’t do jack.” But instead of reaching for the controls that Chuck held firm, he leaned over his friend and snatched the controls Hobie held.

“Hey!” Hobie objected eloquently.

“I’m Knuckles now,” Donny announced. He tossed the controls formerly known as Chuck’s to Hobie. “You be Tails.”

“Tails sucks, man,” Hobie said. “He don’t do Jack.”

Adrian closed his eyes in a silent plea for patience. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a good, solid two-by-four at the moment. How could people who claimed the IQs of NASA engineers have the maturity of eggplants?

“Boys, don’t make me separate you,” he said as he pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “You know how much you hate being put in time-out.”

They, of course, ignored him. Worse than ignored him, actually. They didn’t even hear him. And if there was one thing Adrian hated more than anything in the world, it was going unnoticed.

He opened his mouth to say something that would, he hoped, wrest their attention from the colorful graphics zipping by on the TV screen for even a moment, when the door to the hotel suite beeped at the use of a key card, then opened to reveal the final member of the group. She, too, barely acknowledged Adrian as she strode by him, tossing a halfhearted “Hey, Nick” over her shoulder at him as she approached the boys instead.

Ah, Iris, he thought as he watched her take a seat on the sofa, thrusting one long leg over the arm to swing her foot anxiously above the floor. She was always doing something anxiously. The antithesis to the boys, who could sit idly for hours in front of their games, Iris Daugherty could never be still for more than a few minutes at a time. She was an icon of her generation, too, though she took greater pains to establish her own identity of Goth Girl. She was dressed today as she always was, completely in black, from the cropped T-shirt to the baggy, zipper-ridden cargo pants to the studded belt and high-top sneakers. Her ears were pierced probably a dozen times, as was her eyebrow, her nose and her navel. Scores of black rubber bracelets encircled one wrist, and a black studded wristwatch was wrapped around the other. She carried with her, as she always did, an enormous black bag, chunky with its contents, slung diagonally over her shoulder and torso. As he always did, Adrian wondered what she could possibly have it filled with, as it was indeed always completely stuffed. She dyed her straight, chin-length hair and eyebrows black to match her clothes, even painted her bittendown nails black. Heavy black liner encircled pale blue eyes, and black lipstick stained her mouth.

Whenever Adrian saw her, he couldn’t help wondering what she’d looked like before the transformation. Especially since she was an aging Goth Girl who couldn’t hang on to this persona much longer without looking ridiculous. At twenty-six, she was older than the boys by half a dozen years, having started college a bit later than the others and taking her time to complete her degree. Adrian didn’t know a lot about her, but from what he’d heard and observed of her, he’d formed an impression of a rich kid who was even more bored by life than he was. He’d been around wealth often enough as an adult that he was reasonably adept at recognizing those who were born to it. Perhaps because his own background was so completely opposite to theirs.

Although Iris was certainly as comfortable around computers as the boys were, Adrian had come to the conclusion that the main reason she hung out with them was that she was a geek groupie. He’d overheard enough conversations between the young men when she wasn’t around to know that she’d slept with all three of them at some point—and more than once with all of them at the same time, something that intrigued Adrian rather a lot.

Ah, well then, he thought as the realization formed. He stood corrected. There was something—or rather, someone—he found intriguing after all. In fact, he found Iris rather fascinating. Rather captivating. And more than worthy of his preoccupation.

“Hello, Iris,” he greeted her as she slumped back on the sofa and watched the boys play.

She had the courtesy to turn around then and reply, “What’s up, Nick?” But she promptly returned her attention to the game and gamers, indicating she hadn’t expected a reply to the question. And when she realized what the boys were still arguing over, she uttered a loud sound of obvious disgust. “You’re playing Sonic again?” she said disdainfully. “What are you, a bunch of fifth graders? I thought we were going to break out the new Resident Evil this afternoon.”

“We men,” Chuck said manfully, emphasizing his gender, “are playing Sonic. You do what you want, Iris.”

What Iris did was roll her eyes dramatically and leap up from the sofa to make her way to the minibar, from which she withdrew, without asking permission, a soft drink. Not that Adrian minded. Much. It wasn’t as if he’d be drinking it himself. The beverage was, to his way of thinking, about as appealing as a big glass of bile. Not to mention that any expenses racked up during his stay here in the suite were more than covered by the money the group had appropriated over the past few months. Mostly by raiding other people’s computers and appropriating their financial information—and then their finances themselves. And Iris was no slouch herself when it came to hacking and designing viruses. Plus, there was the small matter of, when it came time to check out of the suite, Adrian would be gone before the bill was tucked under the door, leaving behind absolutely no traceable evidence of himself or the others.

He was currently on week three at the Four Seasons. One more, and he’d be moving to the Omni, just up the road. Although he alone stayed at the suite around the clock, he’d given the others key cards and indicated they were welcome whenever they wanted to drop by. That, of course, wasn’t true—Adrian didn’t welcome them at all, ever—but he needed them to think he was one of them, or at the very least striving to be one of them. They were valuable tools, the way he saw it. And he wanted to have them close by for whenever he might need them.

Like tonight.

He watched Iris as she screwed the top off the soda and enjoyed a healthy swallow before lowering it again. And for some reason he found the sight of her black-stained mouth covering the rim of the bottle to be more than a little arousing. He hadn’t really thought about giving Iris a go himself, since the last time he’d mixed business with pleasure, he’d regretted it. What he’d thought was simply an alluring sex kitten named Tiffannee, someone who didn’t have the brains of a sponge mop, had turned out to be one of the most dangerous—and cunning—women in the world. And she’d come this close to returning Adrian to the not-so-loving bosom of OPUS, who would have then locked him up and thrown away the key.

He would not make the same mistake twice. His information pipeline at OPUS might not be running quite as freely and quickly as it once had, but he’d been able to learn enough about each of the boys to be reasonably certain they were precisely who they claimed to be. Iris remained a big question mark, but since she wasn’t really a player in their game, Adrian wasn’t too concerned about her background anyway.

What mattered was that bits and pieces of information had begun to flow from his source again, and a background check of each of his, ah, colleagues was at the top of his list of needs. It shouldn’t be long before he knew more about them than they knew themselves. In the meantime, they’d more than proved their worth by breaking every law he’d asked them to, without question or compunction. There was almost no chance any of them were working for anyone other than him. Would that they just worked a little better. Then Adrian would be a very happy man.

“So what’s on the agenda tonight?” Iris asked.

The question dispelled his troubled thoughts and replaced them with much nicer ideas. He was rather looking forward to this evening. He had his eye on a certain Swiss bank account he was hoping the boys could bleed dry.

Iris moved to the desk in the corner where Adrian’s laptop was folded closed and opened it. Again without asking permission. Again without Adrian minding. Much.

“It’s been a while since we did anything fun,” she added as she seated herself and tapped the mouse pad with her middle finger to bring the computer out of sleep mode.

As she began to type, Adrian set his snifter on a side table and strode across the room to stand behind her. Looking over her shoulder, he saw that she’d gone to the iTunes music store and pulled up information on a band he’d never heard of before. He had to remind himself he was only forty-six and in no way ready for the retirement home. But having spent the past few months with this group, he’d been forced to accept the fact that pop culture no longer catered to his generation. Actors, singers, dissidents, serial killers—they were all younger than Adrian these days. College students were making millions selling Web sites they designed on a lark, and the teenage offspring of bestselling novelists were hitting the lists even higher than some of their parents. Society was now geared to those who were younger, hipper, faster. The ones who required less sleep and more distraction, thereby ensuring that the entertainment industries made money around the clock.

Maybe he wasn’t old, Adrian thought, but he was older. And he was no longer a part of that demographic that everyone wanted to attract. All the more reason to take as much as he could as quickly as he could. So that he could disappear on his own terms, instead of on theirs.

“We haven’t had fun for a while, have we?” he told Iris over the din of the still-arguing boys on the other side of the room.

He completed another step, an action that placed him immediately behind her, close enough that he could have settled both hands on her shoulders had he wanted to. Funnily, he realized he did want to. But he didn’t. Yet. Instead, he only gazed down at the crown of her head, scrutinizing the part in her hair that zigzagged across her scalp. He smiled when he found what he was looking for. There, very faint, he saw that her roots were blond. Very blond. Nearly white-blond. His grin broadened. He’d always had a predilection for blondes.

“You’re right—we should do something fun this evening,” he agreed as Iris began to download music from that band Adrian had never heard of onto his laptop. Without asking his permission. Not that he minded. Much. And although he himself had one or two additional ideas as to what that “fun” might involve, he decided to focus instead on his original plan.

For now.

IRIS DAUGHERTY WAS MORE than a little aware of Nick Darian’s nearness as he stood behind her and watched every move she made on his computer. Good. ‘Bout damned time he started noticing every move she made, since she’d been watching his every move since the day Chuck had introduced the two of them. Even if he did have probably twenty years on her and dressed like a corporate drone. And even if he was interested in any of them only because they knew ‘puters and didn’t mind overstepping the law. Kind of hard not to watch a guy who looked as good as Nick did, with that thick auburn hair and those amber eyes and those cheekbones sharp enough to slice tomatoes. And those shoulders that were broad enough to strain the seams of his shirt. And that waist just narrow enough for a woman to wrap her arms around. And a chest just perfect for that same woman to settle her head against.

Not that Iris had done any of those things to Nick. Not that she was likely to in the near future. But a girl could dream, couldn’t she? Hell, yeah.