by Kim Harrison
“And yet the result is the same.” The man regretfully turned to Kal. “Your temper is still getting the better of you, eh, Trenton?”
“She has no right to be here, Sa’han,” Kal said haughtily. “There are only three offers on her table. The center is for the best, not slag.”
Trisk’s eyes narrowed, but he was only saying what they were all thinking. Behind her, she could feel Quen’s slow anger building, but it was too late. His contract was binding.
But the man only handed Kal a spell with which to clean his face. “And your tongue still doesn’t check in with your brain before waggling,” he said as Kal used the very blood from his broken nose to invoke the charm, and, in a wash of aura-tainted magic, his face was clean. “You think she copied her way to her grade average?” the man said, and Kal’s face flashed red. “You are drastically lacking in the art of stealth and misdirection. Your emotions and wants are as clear as a child’s. Learn what you lack or forever be the shadow of potential that you are today.”
Trisk felt herself pale as he turned to her. He could see right through her, all her grand hopes looking like a child’s pretend. “And you need to find out who you are before you bring your house any more shame,” he said, his rebuke hitting her hard.
Her chest hurt, and she dropped her head. In the near distance, the loud voices of Kal’s parents became obvious as they tried to force their way through the circle of people.
The enclave member sighed, gathering himself. “Kal? Trisk? As neither of you has signed with anyone, you’re allowed to remain on the floor, but you’re confined to your tables. Quen, you have your placement. Go wait in your room.”
Trisk snapped her head up, suddenly frightened. Quen would go through hell now, as Kal would blame him for everything she’d done. “Quen, I’m sorry,” she blurted.
Quen’s mood softened, and he managed a smile. “Me too,” he said. “Don’t worry about it,” he added as he gave her shoulder a squeeze, but what she wanted was for him to take her in his arms and tell her nothing would change between them. “I’ve dealt with worse. I’m proud of you, Trisk. You’re going to do well. I know it.”
He was slipping away from her, and she could do nothing. “Quen . . .”
He looked back once, and then he was gone, the colorful dresses hiding him as the band started up again. The enclave dignitary had vanished as well, and people began to disperse.
Trisk’s eyes rose to find Kal standing with his parents. His father was trying to straighten Kal’s swollen nose, and his mother was attempting to distract the NASA representative from the shattered remains of the hall’s protection.
No one was venturing across the pile of crystal, and Trisk winced when her father’s tall form stumbled to a halt at the fringes, hesitating briefly as he found her eyes and then turned to make his way around it. “The Goddess protect me,” she whispered, nudging a stray crystal out of her way and collapsing in her interview chair. There was no way to make this look good.
“Trisk? Tell me this wasn’t you,” her father said as he worked his way into her booth.
A surge of self-pity rose, and she blinked fast, refusing to cry. “Quen signed with the Kalamacks,” she said, voice cracking.
Her father’s breath came in, but then he exhaled with a knowing, forgiving sound, the shattered chandelier and rising argument at the Kalamack booth suddenly making sense. “I’m sorry,” he said, his hand warm on her shoulder. “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.”
His quick understanding made her feel worse. “I wish he’d know what he’s doing with me.”
Her father dropped to a knee before her and took her into a hug. Her throat closed, and it was as if she were twelve again as he tried to show her all was not lost, that something good would come from it. “Have you made a choice?” he asked gently.
She knew he wanted her to take a position and move forward, but accepting anything other than what she’d worked for felt like failure. His arms still around her, she shook her head.
Slowly his grip fell away. He stood, silent as a special crew began to sweep the crystal into shipping boxes for off-site decontamination. “I’ll get us some coffee,” he finally said. “You’ll be okay for a moment?”
She nodded, knowing it wasn’t coffee he was after, but the chance there might be someone who owed him a favor. Her breath rattled as she exhaled. There were no more favors to be had. He had spent them all getting her this far. She could probably be excused for the effrontery of trying to make it in a man’s field if she looked like their ideal, her efforts excused by her probable goal of finding a better husband. But she didn’t even have that.
He was gone when she looked up.
Numb, she sat in her chair as the conference took on its normal patter and flow, everyone seeing her but no one making eye contact. “You can’t,” a plaintive voice rang out, and she watched as the NASA rep walked away, Kal’s mother following fast, her steps short and heels clicking. Kal met her gaze with a murderous intent, jumping when his father picked up one of his contracts and shoved it at him.
“Sign it,” the older man demanded. “Before they all withdraw their offers.”
“Father,” Kal complained, clearly not liking that Trisk was seeing this.
“Now!” his father exclaimed. “Sa’han Ulbrine was right. You showed a disturbing lack of control and commonsense over a woman you will never see after tonight. Sign.”
Motions stiff, Kal took the pen and signed the paper. His father all but jerked it out from under him. “Go wait in your rooms,” the tall man said coldly, then strode away to register the contract before midnight, when the gala would be over.
Trisk couldn’t help herself, and she made a mocking face at Kal across the aisle.
Kal’s eyes narrowed. “You cost me my dream job,” he said, his melodious voice clear over the surrounding conversations.
“You went out of your way to hurt me,” she said coldly.
He stood to leave, glancing over his booth as if only now seeing it as the vain display it was. Silent, he walked away. A cluster of young women flitted behind him, ignored.
Trisk slumped, tired. She watched him as long as she could, and then he was gone. The final hours passed, and in groups of three and four, smiling parents and happy graduates left the hall on their way to parties hosted by their new employers, and from there, to a new life. She slowly realized she was alone. The tables were empty, the family banners drooping unattended amid the stray cups of cold coffee and tea. Still she sat, her attention fixed on a glint of crystal missed by the cleaners.
The click of a shutting door roused her. Thinking it was her father, Trisk stirred, muscles stiff as she rose and went to pick up the forgotten crystal. It was cool in her hand, smooth but for one rough edge. There was no tingle of magic left—it was just dead crystal. The time to record her contract had come and gone. It didn’t matter. She had no intention of accepting any of the offers. There wasn’t much available for a twenty-six-year-old woman in 1963, but she’d find something. She couldn’t ask her father to continue to support her.
A pang of guilt almost bent her double. He had tried so hard to give her what she wanted, and she’d failed him. The studying, the practice, the sacrifice—all for nothing.
A scuff brought her head up, and her fist closed tight on the shard. A suited official was moving slowly among the discarded chairs and scattered papers. It was the man from the enclave who had chastised her, and a feeling of defiant guilt rose high.
“What a mess,” the man said as he drew close, and she stiffened.
“Good evening, Sa’han,” she said, wanting to leave but unable to now that he’d addressed her.
“I think we’re going to lose our cleaning deposit,” he said as he wearily sat against Kal’s table, left for others to break down and pack away. “But we usually do.”
She said nothing, waiting for him to dismiss her, but he only leaned back, balancing precariously as he found a copy of Kal’s transcripts
, his bushy eyebrows rising as he looked it over. “I didn’t know your GPA was higher than his,” he said in surprise.
She shrugged, not having cared beyond acquiring a spot under the chandelier.
The man slowly bobbed his head, his thin finger tracing a line down Kal’s last eight years. “My mother had dark eyes,” he said softly. “When I complained to my father that she should get them fixed to be like everyone else’s, he told me they helped her see past the crap most of us drape ourselves with. I was never more embarrassed of myself than that day.”
He pushed off from the table, and Trisk backed up, confused.
“I saw what happened,” he said, coming close. “You never used your magic, though you were ready to. I couldn’t hear. What did he say before you punched him in the nose?”
Trisk warmed. “I made an error in judgment, Sa’han. You have my apologies.”
The man smiled. “What did he say?”
She lifted her chin. “He called me a second-rate security grunt, Sa’han.”
Nodding as if unsurprised, the man reached into his suit’s inner pocket and handed her a card embossed with the enclave’s symbol. “As you haven’t accepted any of your fine offers, I’d suggest you put in your application at Global Genetics.”
Trisk took the card, seeing it had his name and a phone number on it. Sa’han Ulbrine, she thought, confused. “In Sacramento?” she said. Global Genetics was a human-run lab, generations behind what any of her people were doing. The enclave was kicking her out, and her heart sank.
But Ulbrine put an arm over her shoulder and turned her to the door. His mood was one of opportunity, not exile, and she didn’t understand. “Occasionally a lab we have no affiliation with makes a breakthrough, and we want to know about it before they publish it.”
They weren’t kicking her out then, but kicking her to the curb, reminding her of her place. “Sa’han . . .” she said, drawing to a stop.
He was smiling when she looked up, his amusement unexpected. “Your excellent grades and background give you a unique ability to infiltrate by taking a job as a genetic researcher. The enclave will pay you a small security stipend,” he said, handing her a contract rolled up and tied with a purple ribbon. “And that is what your title will be on the rolls, but you will have your wage from Global Genetics to supplement your income to the point where you won’t need a spouse to maintain yourself.”
She stared at him, stunned. She’d be free, as few women were in the sixties.
“You will work in a lab,” he said, drawing her into motion again. “It’s where I think you ought to be, and I usually get what I want. You will maintain your job performance for your human employers, but your primary focus is to inform us of any unusual developments.” He chuckled, rubbing his bald head ruefully. “Sometimes the humans get lucky, and we want to know of it.”
“But you said I needed to learn where I belonged,” she fumbled.
“I said you needed to learn who you are. You are a dark elf, Felecia Eloytrisk Cambri. And I’m giving you the chance to live up to your potential. Will you take it?”
Her heart pounded as she realized what he was offering her. On paper, being forced to work outside of an elven lab was a harsh punishment, but in reality, she’d be doing what she enjoyed, what she was good at, and working someplace where she could make a difference.
“Well?” Ulbrine hesitated at the door to the hall. She could see that the contract had been time-stamped an hour ago, legal and binding even if she signed it now. Beyond him lay the world. She could be what she’d always wanted, had striven for. Quen was right. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought.
Her hand trembled as she reached for a pen. “I’ll take it.”
2
Stifling a yawn, Trisk confidently made her way deeper into the underground labs of Global Genetics. It was nearing noon, and she could feel her body slowing down, forced to stay awake to hold to a human schedule. After three years, she no longer nodded off over lunch, but it was hard to fight the urge for a four-hour nap when the sun was at its highest. Elves were most alert at sunrise and sunset, but it had been ages since she’d allowed herself the luxury of her natural inclination to sleep at noon and midnight.
Her low-heeled baby-doll shoes were eerily silent on the polished floor, and the faint smell of antiseptic was a familiar balm, pricking the back of her nose. After noticing a few high eyebrows this morning, she’d closed her lab coat to hide her short, bright yellow skirt, but the matching hose still made a colorful statement. Her lab assistant, Angie, said the outfit was fine, but getting the new look past the stuffier old men she worked with was proving to be difficult.
“Hi, George,” she said to the man at the glass double doors, and he rose from his desk to open them for her. There was no need to show her ID, and she didn’t even bring it out from behind her lab coat.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Cambri. Save me a piece of cake?”
His smile was infectious, and her mood brightened. “One with a rose on it. You got it,” she said as she crossed into the restricted zone. Immediately the drier air and tang of ozone from the massive computers under her feet made her long hair float, and she impatiently tried to corral the strands that had escaped her hair clip at the back of her neck. If she were at the elf-run NASA facility, the computer needed to comprehend the genetic code of just one organism would fit into a room. Here, with human-only equipment, it took an entire floor—at least until someone leaked the technology and humankind took another leap forward.
Trisk heard the building’s head secretary before she saw her, the woman’s trendy thigh-high vinyl boots clicking on the hard floor. “Hi, Trisk,” the bubbly older woman said as she turned a corner and came into sight. “Are you getting him now?”
“Right this minute,” Trisk said, and Barbara beamed, her eyes alight as she took Trisk’s hands for a quick second.
“Outta sight! I’ll make sure everyone is in the lunchroom,” she said, the click-clack of her boots quickening as she ran in prissy, mincing steps to the security door and the elevators beyond. Her colorful dress rode high, and her hair was tall, but the day planner tucked under her arm had everyone’s schedule in it, and the self-appointed mother of them all knew more than anyone about how to keep the small facility working, even if she did look and act like an aged stand-in on American Bandstand—which raised the question: If Barbara could get away with flaunting the new styles exploding into the shops this summer, why couldn’t Trisk?
Because Barbara isn’t helping design tactical biological weapons, Trisk thought as she passed her lab, still proud of her name on the door. Her outer office was dark, but she could see through the interior windows into the brightly lit testing bays, green and gold in the artificial sun. There had been a marked slowdown in her lab since the patent to the Angel tomato had been sold to Saladan Industries and Farms and the slow, yearlong process of transferring data, seeds, and propagation techniques to Saladan Farms had begun. She’d have to find a new project by the first of the year, but for now, she still had a secondary, newly tweaked seed crop growing in the huge underground nursery—along with all the tomatoes she could give away.
Across the hall was Dr. Daniel Plank’s lab, and Trisk hesitated at the window, waving to get the attention of the two people suited up in level-two containment suits. The suits were big and bulky compared to the ones she’d learned in, making her feel foolish the first time she’d climbed into one and not known how to zip the stupid thing up. Fortunately she didn’t need one anymore in her day-to-day. Her product was two years in the field and doing well.
Both figures looked up, the taller immediately gesturing for her to come into the outer office. She knew it was Daniel even if she couldn’t see his blond hair and plastic-framed glasses through the thick helmet. He was the closest thing to an elf she’d seen since moving out here, and it bothered her that she’d been drawn to his slim build and light hair like a junkie.
Acknowledging him, she punched in
the four-digit code to his door lock and entered his office. Only one window now separated them, and smiling, she went to the communication panel, as familiar with his office as her own. “Hi, Daniel,” she said, making sure her cleavage wasn’t showing as she leaned over the mic. “How long until you’re done?”
Daniel turned from his setup, fingers clumsy in the one-size-fits-all glove. “Trisk? What can I do for you this morning?”
Stifling another yawn, she raised her wrist and tapped her watch. “It’s noon. We have a plate of mac and cheese upstairs waiting for us. You promised.”
“Noon?” Daniel turned to his assistant. “Larry, why didn’t you tell me it was that late?”
“Sorry, Doctor.” Larry’s sour voice came faintly over the open channel. “I thought you were going to skip lunch. Again.”
Trisk hid a smile at the faint accusation in the man’s voice, but Daniel was known to forget to eat lunch. Go home at the end of the day. Have a life. She made a mental note to set aside a piece of cake for Larry as well.
“Oh, jeez . . .” Daniel turned back to Larry, clearly not wanting to leave him to work alone. “Trisk, can you give us another five minutes?”
“Just go,” the assistant said in resignation. “I can finish this myself. Probably faster than with your help, even.”
“Thanks, Larry. I appreciate that.”
Trisk rocked back as Daniel gave Larry some last instructions, moving slowly and awkwardly to the decontamination room. Knowing it would take him some time to work through the SOP, Trisk settled herself at Daniel’s terminal and punched in his password.
Fingers moving adroitly over the keyboard, she brought up the latest coding for the protein coat around the tactical virus he was working with. Again, she glanced at Daniel, his helmet off now as he closed his eyes against the glare of the decontamination light and scrubbed at his scalp as if he were in the shower. Returning to the screen, she compared the code to the one hand-printed on a scrap of paper she took from her pocket.