「You never did keep your promise,」 Mei Lin said suddenly. Caldwell almost choked on his food.
It was definitely one way to break the id she was beginning to get unfortable with the iy of Caldwell』s stare. As much as Caldwell didn』t want to admin it, Mei Lin had turned out to be even more attractive than when she was a teenager. Her features were a lot stronger, more intense. Her body was lithe like a ballet dancer with well-toned muscles. Her face was a lot more assured. Tonight, she was wearing a strapless top which told anyone who cared to look that she spent a lot of time in the gym and the dojo. She had wide elegant shoulders and a pact midriff tapering off to a slim waist. Her eyes hadn』t ged much. They were slightly darker in the subdued light of the Vietnamese restaurant located a stohrow from Shek O Beach.
Caldwell khat deep inside he hoped that his memories of her were not manufactured by HYDRA. He found it difficult to keep his eyes away from her face, willio bee transparent so that he could see through her. Whatever he had felt for her in those memories of all those years ago was still flowing below the surface like precipitation in a water table.
「It』s a long story. One I only found out myself less than forty-eight ho.」
「So you keep saying. I』m listening,」 Mei Lin said simply. There was a look of inteional pain on her face, the kind that had been painstakingly buried only to have it relutly dug up agaihin pink lips were pursed. Her eyes had turned into pools of squid ink, opaque and totally unreadable. Was she ag, bolstering the perceived authenticity of his retly acquired memories of her?
「The truth is I don』t know what happeo me after the day I met you. You see I had my memory erased by HYDRA six years ago.」 Caldwell paused for dramatic effed to study her rea.
「You don』t expect me to believe that do you? HYDRA doesn』t do those kinds of things. At any rate, there is no data of this in your file.」 Was she keeping up the preteoeing the official line?
「And that means it didn』t happen, right? You will be surprised. I think you will believe me by the time I am finished,」 Caldwell said with thinly-veiled sarcasm.
「OK, go on.」 There ecter of incredulity in her eyes but it didn』t look like it had any staying power. Caldwell felt that the ice had been somewhat broken and he would be able to make some progress in making her believe him. Yet, he was anything but plat. He could not trust her.
「As far as I was aware I knew nothing about Fouler or HYDRA until yesterday m when I went to the Dods to meet a hacker friend I knew only as Glyph. Until then, Glyph had been an online associate only. We had never met in the flesh. If it wasn』t flyph, and the work that he passed on to me, I would still be sleeping rough under Waterle.」
「You were sleeping rough?」
「Yeah, a homeless une below Waterle. The authorities turned a blind eye. We lived off the streets. Terrible times but made some lifelong friends.」
「How did you end up there?」 There was something Caldwell reized as empathy in her eyes.
「Truth is, I woke up one day and there I was. The area below Waterle has a reputation as a place to abandon unwanted infants and I guess folks who have had their memories erased. Basically, unwanted members of the human race who the system itself to murder in cold blood.」
「No wonder.」
「No wonder what?」
「No wonder I』ve been so miserable most of these years.」