Episode 5 - The Tide Recedes, and What it Leaves Behind

  Chapter 44 - Clouds Gather

  Rhett is reading when I drop my breakfast tray down next to him in the communal mess. I grabbed only some bread and a ramekin of fruit jam, too groggy from my late night outing to feel much hunger. A Vespa crawls on my ear, much like it does his own ear.

  He raises one eyebrow at my breakfast, one hand cupped around a mug of tea, and then returns to reading.

  “Mission stuff?” I ask, picking up a knife and scraping some burnt edges off the bread.

  “No.” His loose curls tumble down one side of his head, not yet braided into his usual single plait down the back of his head. He’s already dressed in his corporate armor too; dark navy collared shirt, black slacks, a gleaming chrome belt buckle.

  “Hmm,” I grunt, lacking the energy to really jab at him like I might normally be tempted to.

  He takes a sip from his mug, turns his tablet sideways and begins to type. I leave him to it while I spread the jam on my toast. After only a moment, he pushes the tablet into my tray.

  You go somewhere last night?

  “We dark?” I mutter somewhat sarcastically.

  He rolls his eyes and pushes out his chair with a squeak against the laminate flooring. Then he stands and moves to leave.

  “You’d ask me the same thing,” I say to his back.

  He turns, looking at me one-eyed over his shoulder. “I probably would.” Then continues down the aisle between mess hall benches.

  Well, okay, that didn’t go well. I sniff, bite my breakfast, and consider if he’s angry with me for sneaking out, or angry with me for not including him in the sneaking out.

  Then my eyes drift to the unlocked tablet still on the table. The notepad app is still open with his message to me. I hesitate, then cannot contain my curiosity and swipe to dismiss it and see what he was reading.

  It’s a scientific paper about aquatic plants. I recognize the journal name and the corporate affiliations of the authors. I scroll once, frowning as I skim the abstract, then tap the sleep on the side of the tablet as a clamp of guilt wraps around my heart.

  “Employee manifest,” says Foreman Hiram, handing me a data stick.

  I brush my hair back over my head, staring blankly for a moment while I process the sudden intrusion to my thoughts. “And symbionts?”

  “I think so.”

  I take the stick from his hands and plug it into my tablet, bringing up the files over the security logs I was reviewing. A huge spreadsheet of names opens, and I begin scrolling, skimming the column with the symbiont species are listed.

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” asks Hiram. “HR could help?”

  Rhett lifts his head from across the conference room; we’re about as far apart as it would be possible to get. Cobalt blue eyes flash with curiosity despite his mask of casual indifference.

  I scroll through the ‘L’s, looking for Lepus. Not a single one.

  “I don’t think so,” I mutter as I stare blankly at the alphabetical list, not sure where that leaves me now. I can’t say that I saw what I think is a Lepus cornutus, let alone give up the hint I suspect a cryptid is the source of their problems without evidence. It’ll be safer to find and connect the host to the sabotage. I wish I got more sleep. A hollow feeling is beginning to pool in my stomach. “You have any contractors?” I ask to keep the conversation moving while I think.

  “Not currently.”

  I highlight a few genera of symbionts in red and hand the tablet back to Hiram. “I want security clearance levels on these employees,” I say.

  He turns the tablet around, looking at the half dozen species I’ve highlighted. They’re all species I know can manipulate heat. He might not know it, but it’s too obvious. They’ve already looked into it if their HR is even remotely competent, I’m sure of it. My only goal to get him out of the room. Hiram glances at Rhett, who nods, then he exits.

  I let go of a breath I didn’t realize I was holding, rubbing my eyes with exhaustion. Sudden stress washes over me, and I press my fingertips against my eyelids trying to hold back pricks of moisture in the corners of my eyes. I really did not get enough sleep.

  “We’re dark.”

  Rhett has shifted closer. Pell is hanging from one corner of the conference room ceiling, masking the camera with her abdomen and glowing faint teal blue. I glance at him from between my fingers and feel the pointed legs of the Vespa on my ear.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  I will protect us.

  Trust me.

  I will trust you.

  I need to give him something. There is no way he’ll trust anything I say if I attempt to brush him off. I pick at my lip with one hand, peeling up a fragment of dried skin.

  “I snuck into Murasaki.”

  “Ah. Did you know this Adrian?”

  “I did not? When?”

  I know how to avoid the Vespa when I can see them. “Last night.”

  “I said you were too green to operate alone,” continues Rhett.

  “No one caught me. Adrian didn’t even know I was gone. And I’m back here, aren’t I?” I bite back testily.

  Rhett grunts in acknowledgement. “As far as we know. And?” He doesn’t look directly at me. His voice sounds like he's trying to pretend that he doesn’t care, that he’s vaguely disappointed as my manager, masked in his stupid paternalistic defensiveness of everything Aquila.

  “I wasn’t caught.”

  “Maybe. And what did you scout then?”

  I sigh.

  “There’s a radio tower. In the north end of the district, on top of the IT and Security towers, I think. There’s an access panel, a low-voltage power line and a data cable that I can wire into if I install my box on the tower itself.”

  Rhett blinks. “You got on the roof? How?”

  “The problem is still the intranet connection. There’s an access door with a push bar that I can get in, but I’m not sure what I’ll find and how to get back out?”

  “You didn’t come up through it?”

  I shake my head.

  “How did you get in undetected then?”

  I glance at my hands. “We went over the top.”

  “Over the…” Rhett rocks back in his chair as he grapples with that explanation. “You flew?”

  “We jumped. From roof to roof.”

  “We? Oh…” He looks downright perplexed, spinning from side to side slightly in his office chair, but his concerns about me being caught seem completely forgotten. “How are you going to get an intranet line to the roof?”

  I groan, running my hands back through my hair again. My wrist brushes the wings of the Vespa on my ear. “I dunno, drill a hole through the wall and run a line. Steal some conduit and cable from a maintenance closet? I have no idea. It could take hours to install properly.”

  “It’ll need to be clean for technicians who go up there to ignore it.”

  I pause.

  He’s thinking about it. His eyes are darting, his hand rubbing his own chin as he rolls his jaw.

  “You can’t come,” I say, withdrawing into the back of my chair.

  “I am coming.”

  “I’m not going then. It’s too difficult to pull off.”

  Rhett laughs dryly. “Yeah sure. I don’t believe that.”

  “Adrian?”

  “My involvement ends with sending a Vespa with you next time to ensure you don’t get into trouble.”

  “Pooka can’t carry you.”

  “He carried me just fine before.”

  My heart clenches, an anxious frustration bubbling at the corner they are backing me into. I want this. But I don’t want it like this. I wish it wasn’t this.

  I want it to be easier. But I don’t want the help that would make it easier. And I cannot parse the jumble of emotions that clamor within my mind to understand why. Foolish pride in my own capabilities? Anticipation of a trap? Preemptive guilt? I don’t know.

  If I was better, if I was trusted, they wouldn’t gang up on me like this. I did just fine before Aquila. Rhett doesn’t owe me anything, so why is he insisting on coming? I owe him, and he’s still here trying to help me. Why? What does he want? To dig me deeper into my debts to him?

  I want to scream in frustration, like a child. I am capable of handling my own business.

  And yet…

  I wasn’t. I made mistake after mistake. I learnt all my lessons only via the hardest ways, getting my dad called into HR and security offices time and again. A sneaky little thought flips through my memory of my own records, pausing on the improvement plans and credit deductions we both faced. He faced. On my behalf. An innocent bystander. Right till the end even, when finally I was proven to be the investment they were waiting for, Meiko was used as collateral to ensure Murasaki could safely unload me.

  Why can I support them from my seat in Control, but it fills me with such turmoil to let them help me?

  “I said I wouldn’t touch you,” says Rhett, breaking me from my spiral. “I keep my word. And I take care of Aquila.”

  His brows are soft, his elbows propped on his knees and hands hanging between his legs as he watches me. And I believe him. As long as I’m not too directly at odds with Aquila, he’s given me my freedom and space time and time again.

  I sigh and bury my face in my hands, finally surrendering.

  “Fine. We can go tonight. You can take a look at it and tell me what you think.”

  Lepus is the genus for hares, and Lepus cornutus is actually the name that was given to the European equivalent of a jackalope and was believed to be a real animal at one point, hence having a binomial name. It predates jackalopes by several hundred years. But I think most folks are going to be most familiar with a jackalope these days which is literally an American invention for tourists (lol).

  'The hare runs into the fire. The fire, it takes her, she is not burned. The fire, it loves her, she is free...' Actually, if you want something to read, I highly recommend it. It's YA, but the themes are very mature and it does not pull punches on some of the hard lessons we learn growing up.