Off Limits
He stepped back into the orange glare of the flickering halogen bulb, his head lifting until his eyes met mine.
They were wide, dilated, and entirely steady. There was no anger in them. No fear. No calculation. For nine years, those eyes had spent every waking hour analyzing data streams, looking for anomalies, treating the world as a software problem that could be solved through absolute detachment. Now, they looked like two empty windows into an engine room that had been completely gutted by fire.
"I am not going to fight you, Jeremy," he said.
His voice was a gravelly, cracked rasp, but it held that same terrifyingly level, mechanical cadence. It was the voice of a system that had accepte