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Tempest emerged from the director’s office, and I stood up from the bench.
“Oh, you’re still here,” she said.
“I told you I’d wait for you. Good meeting?”
“Fine.” She eyed the elevator but then shot for the sky-bridge exit. She correctly guessed I’d follow her onto the elevator and wished to avoid the close encounter.
There were two sixth-floor access points at Geo-Tech—an elevator inside the building and the catwalk. “You were in with Breeze O’Day for an hour and twenty-two minutes,” I commented.
She exited onto the sky bridge. Its glass walls had been transparent once, but they’d frosted to opacity. It was like strolling through a long white tunnel. If not for signs marking various buildings, people would have no idea where they were or where to exit.
“You were clocking me?”
I tapped my temple. “I can’t help it. My sense of time is as accurate as an atomic chronometer.”
She halted, her mouth forming an O, and gave me her full attention for the first time since leaving the office. “You’ve finally admitted it.” She resumed walking.
“Admitted what? That I can tell time?”
“That you’re a cyborg.”
“You deduced that from me having an excellent sense of time? That’s a bit of a leap, isn’t it?” I sidestepped. I had nothing to gain from denying the obvious, except the satisfaction of baiting her.
“I don’t know of any humans who are like atomic clocks,” she said.
“I’m still human!” Her insinuation stung because I had become somewhat less than human.
“Can you do what Quint Stroud did?”
“I don’t know. What did the C-Force commander do?”
“Transform his skin into body armor.”
“Yes.” Armoring wasn’t a secret since it was a standard feature of the transformation, which replaced organic skin with a synthetic polymer. Other mods, like my internal wireless enabling me to hack into any digital system, weren’t for common knowledge.
I expected another dig about my lack of humanity, but instead she asked, “How did you know Stroud was the C-Force commander?”
“It’s my business to know. What did you and Breeze talk about for so long?”
“This and that.”
For an hour and twenty-two minutes? “Like what?”
“Sand. What else?”
“What about it?”
She shrugged and pursed her lips. “What they’re doing to mitigate it.” Words and body language contradicted one another.
“What are they doing to mitigate it?” I probed.
“I don’t tell you how to do your job.”
We’d boarded the skywalk elevator. A half inch of the white stuff coated the floor. Like the skywalk, the elevator’s glass walls had frosted. “I wasn’t telling you how to do your job. I asked what the director of Geo-Tech said.”
“And I’m telling you I don’t see why it’s any of your business.”
“If it’s the president’s business, it’s my business. I’m here to safeguard her interests.”
The elevator descended.
“So am I!” she insisted.
“Are you?” I stopped the elevator and crowded her against the wall. “Because it sure doesn’t seem like it sometimes.” I needed to get a firm handle on where she stood. Was she still loyal to the president? Or had the meeting with Geo-Tech changed that?
Her eyes widened, and a vein throbbed in her slender throat. I could almost hear her pulse rate skyrocket. If ever anyone looked guilty, she did. Then again, maybe her expression reflected her low opinion of me; I was the subhuman enforcer she loathed.
However, I was adept at reading people and so was the president. She didn’t trust her for a reason.
“If you have a specific accusation, then say it. Otherwise, get out of my space!” She glared at me, trying to appear furious, but I could see the fear. I’d put it there. Sometimes I hated my job. And hate was a strong word since I rarely felt any emotion. Except, with Tempest, I did. God help me, I did.
“I can help you,” I said. Trust me and let me help you, please. From the start, the choice of strategy had been a coin toss. Win her confidence by pretending to be her ally? Or intimidate her into confession? Subterfuge accounted for no small part of my job. I could dissemble and lie without a twinge of remorse, unless it involved Tempest. So I avoided lying as much as I could, which meant my process for determining her loyalties had become a bizarre combination of ersatz friendliness and veiled intimidation.
“Help me with what? First, you imply I’m being disloyal to the president—and we both know what the consequences would be—and now, you offer to help me?” She shoved hard at my chest.
I considered not letting her go, but I stepped aside. She had balls. But bravado wouldn’t be enough to save her when the situation got ugly. For god’s sake, let me help you before time runs out.
She jabbed the button on the panel, and the elevator resumed its descent.
It spit us out onto the sand-covered street. Tempest didn’t bother to don a mask but sprint-walked the half block to her RTC. She climbed into the vehicle, but, before the hatch closed, I leaned in. “I’ll know what you’re going to do before you do,” I said.
She flashed me a saccharin smile. “Then I guess you won’t need me to tell you.”
The hatch closed, and she zoomed away.
