Chapter #20The Faces Across the Breakfast Table by: Seuzz   You wake late the next morning from nightmares you can't remember. Patterson is already up, and surprises you with the crackle and perfume of bacon on the stove. "How do you like your eggs?"
"Fried. Like my brain. How was your night?"
"Eh. I always have a hard time my first night in a new place. I'll have coffee for you in a minute."
While he finishes up breakfast, you take a very fast shower, just enough to get the night grime off you. You slip on some cotton athletic shorts and drop down at the small dining room table across from Patterson. To the bacon and eggs he's also added toast, coffee and two oranges you didn't remember having in the refrigerator.
You eat silently until you catch Patterson eye roving over your torso. "Like my tats," you grin.
"You've got a lot of them."
"I've had a lot more. Lot of them get scrubbed after a game."
"Which ones do you keep?"
"The ones that can be useful. Pretty girls. Fat girls. Big, strong guys, if you need to fight. Old people, if you want to be ignored. Teenagers if you need to blend into a crowd. A lot of us have favorites that we picked up and that we like to keep. Mind showing me yours? Who'd you use for the assassin exercise?"
Patterson lays his fork aside. He puts his hand to his side.
"Oh, that's Bruce," you say of the broad-chested, olive-skinned slab now sitting across from you. "That was the one Cox used on his assassination trial. Didn't keep him, I don't think. Reflexes were too slow."
"I didn't need reflexes," Patterson says, and you'd forgotten that "Bruce" has a surprisingly high-pitched voice. "I just twisted the target's head off his neck."
"Yeah, you use what you've got," you agree. "What about Black Bag?"
You have to look away from this transformation, or you'll get vertigo. When you glance back, your tablemate is almost lost in the folds of the sweatshirt: a girl, maybe ten years old, with long dark hair and a very serious expression. "She's a new one," you say. "Does she have a name?"
"For the exercise her name was Celia," the little girl says. "I had to get something out of her father's safe, and this seemed like a good cover."
"Judging by your card, it worked, too. What happened on Intelligence Collection, you only got a five."
"I got a seven originally," the little girl says before you have to look away again. "That was my first trial," says a college-age girl with honey-blonde hair and bright green eyes. "Then I did the Honeypot, and the judges gave me a jack and bumped my Intelligence score down to a five."
"Whoa. You know why they did that, don't you? Because Gallion's high card is a jack. If they'd left you with that seven for Intelligence, they'da had to give you a queen or higher for the Honeypot, and then you'd outrank Gallion even before your first game. So they gave you a jack and moved the other one down. Fuckin'-a, man." You nod at him. "Is she the skin you used for the Honeypot?"
"No, this was for Intelligence. I was supposed to get a scan of a professor's grade book. For Honeypot—" Her eyes fall, and a little dimple shows in her cheek.
Your eyes hurt.
"I think they thought they were setting me a challenge," he says. His head is rectangular, with strong cheekbones and jawline and chin, topped with curly blonde hair that's been cropped close. The wide smile shows hard, white teeth.
"No, that's not a hard look to work with," you tell him.
"But it's easier to catch a guy in a Honeypot with a girl, than to catch a—"
"Swallows and ravens," you interrupt. "That's what they're called. The girl who catches a guy is a swallow, and this guy here would be a raven. What did you do that was so impressive?"
"I got the girl's brother, too," he says, and you guffaw. "I think I lucked out."
"But you played the hand, and that's what counts." You pick up the plates and take them in to the sink. "The college girl is probably worth keeping. Bruce can keep too, until you get a better enforcer. You should scrub the little girl, though—"
"Why? Isn't that a good cover?"
"Yeah, but you gotta think of the clothes. If you're moving from one place to another, through an environment where a little princess won't stand out, and you've got the wardrobe, then sure, that's a terrific look. But it's pretty rare to find yourself in such a situation."
"Still, if that kind of situation crops up—"
"If it crops up, you'll have other skins that will work just as good and won't be taking up space. And this guy—" You point to him. "You can probably scrub him too."
Since Patterson had shifted back to his birthday skin while your back was turned, your gibe is met with narrowed eyes. But then you grin at him, and he laughs too.
* * * * *
Gallion looks much calmer when you find him in the Mongrels' office the next morning. "Room for one more?" you ask with light irony as you lean in the doorway, and look back at Patterson, who has followed you.
Gallion smiles tightly. "Take either one you want," he says to his new office mate, and points to the desks formerly occupied by Carrero and Stanfill. "But Lamb and I get first dibs on anything you find inside 'em," he adds.
"You heard from Lamb?" you ask.
"He only talks to Knotts."
"Where is she?"
"Meeting with Dey and the elves."
"What about?" you ask, but he only shrugs. You clap Patterson on the shoulder. "If you need me, holler," you say, and go to Dey's office.
But you're intercepted by Lucille before you can reach his door. "Are you expected, Mr. Kipper," she asks.
"What do I look like, the Spanish Inquisition?"
"No, but you might expect a visit from them if you go in uninvited. Mr. Dey specifically wanted this meeting closed."
"I guess I should just be grateful he finally came into the office for once." You flash a mirthless smile at Lucille; she flashes it back. You go back down the hall to the office you share with the other Dukes.
"How was your night with Chiyoko," Muniz asks with a smirk as you settle in.
"Cut the shit, man," you say. "You know the rule about Chiyokos and ex-jeeps."
"Fucker still owes four days as a Chiyoko by my count," he retorts.
"It's about performance, not duration—"
"So you're confessing you're a three-second man?"
You clap him an Italian salute. "He's an ex-jeep. Isn't that disrespect enough? Besides," you add as he shrugs. "I already told him the Chiyoko gags would be off-limits until he finished his first game."
"Assuming we live that long," Muniz mutters.
"Mm-hmm. So what's the meeting about? Knotts and Dey and the elves," you explain.
"Something about the shadow mind, I assume."
"Oh, did Cox tell you about that?"
He slumps. "God damn it, I rate higher than him, you think I can't get my gossip straight from Knotts?"
"Sorry."
"Okay, in this case I did get it from Cox, but in principle—"
"But it's about the shadow mind? They get it working?"
"That's my deduction. Or it's totally fucked. Why else would they be meeting with the elves?"
"Maybe it's about the clothes they got off the starfucker who iced Chernov," you say. "Oh, Knotts didn't tell you about that either?"
Now he claps his palm against his bicep and Italian-salutes you.
"Yeah, CID found her costume, and Lamb diverted it here for the elves to analyze," you drawl, then look up as Cox leans in the doorway. "How was your three-way last night?" you ask him.
"Knotts wants you," he says. "Where's Patterson?"
"Settling into the Mongrels' office. I thought Knotts was in a meeting."
"And now she wants to see you and Patterson."
Something in the way he's not meeting your eye catches your attention. "Were you in that meeting? I thought it was only her and Dey and the elves."
"I sat in for part."
"What was it about?" you ask, but he says nothing, and leaves. You turn to Muniz. "Can you believe this shit? He rates lower than you and me, but he gets to sit in on a meeting?"
Muniz shrugs. "Given the shit that's going down, I don't think I'd want to be invited to a meeting."
* * * * *
You and Patterson find Knotts in her office, and White is with her. "Gotta card for you guys," she tells your trio. "We're rating it a seven because we don't know how else to rate it. You pull it off, White," she tells him, "and that'll be your second pair, bump you up to Dukes."
"I thought we were suspending all games," you say. "Not that I'm trying to shit on your parade, White." He shrugs.
"It's a small game under special circumstances," Knotts says. "Normally, we'd rank it a four, no higher. But Katarina Chernov got a message from CID this morning. Lamb wants to meet with me, so we've set up a lunch date."
"What's the crisis?"
"I don't know. Big enough he wants to meet and only wants to talk about it in person. Day before yesterday I would've just gone to meet him. But yesterday we put new protocols in place."
Patterson speaks: "You think it was Cupcake who called?"
Knotts looks at him, then looks at you, then shrugs. "It's not a matter of what I think. It's a matter of following my own rules. So I'm meeting him at eleven, but I want support."  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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