by M. D. Cooper
“I always do.” She smiled at him.
He didn’t return her smile. “I mean it. If something seems different, then I’m worried. You’ve been doing this a long time. You know when something’s wrong. If things feel wrong, then they are.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” She felt odd. Conflicted. Her inclination to sweep annoyances away got hung up on his warning.
He cupped her face in his hands, gently forcing her to look him in the eyes. “Don’t guess. Be sure. You’re everything to Aunt Ruth and me. And Rio. You’re important to Trey now, too. Even Dex.”
She tried to pull back, but he didn’t let her. “You’re being so serious. What’s the deal?”
He folded her into his arms, and she rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“You matter,” he said, his lips not far from her ear. “You’ve never thought you did, but you do. It’s not about how much of the planet belongs to you. It’s about the people, no matter how few, who love you.”
She pushed back then, harder, so she could escape his grasp and look at him to try to judge his expression.
She couldn’t, though. He looked troubled.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “I always am. I just…I said too much, because Trey kept asking all these probing questions. Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”
Kippy’s shoulders lost their tension and he seemed to sag for a moment. Then he straightened. “If that’s what you say, then I have to trust you. I just hope you’re not telling me what you think I want to hear.”
“Why would I do that?” she asked.
He took a step back. “I don’t know. Why would you?”
Everything about this encounter was wrong. His expressions, his tone, the way he was looking at her. His words, for sure. They didn’t seem to line up with what he was actually saying. It was nothing like the Kippy she knew.
Why was he doing this?
She stared at him, and he stared right back at her. Under her gaze, he morphed from the six-year-old boy she’d known into a stranger.
A handsome stranger.
Gorgeous, actually. Hot. Like, super-hot. His bourbon-colored eyes and dark lashes seemed to see right through her.
She took a step back. What the hell was wrong with her? Kippy was her best friend, and the closest thing to a brother she’d ever had. How could she think he was sexy?
She must be exhausted. She covered her face with her hand.
“What’s wrong?” His voice, at least, sounded like the Kippy she knew.
“I…I think I’m starting to feel the stress. I should get some sleep.” She kept her eyes on the ground.
“Probably. You always push yourself too hard. Go rest. Be careful. Okay? Otherwise, I’ll be pissed.” A hint of humor crept into his voice.
She smiled, grateful for the sense of normalcy. “Okay. I’m sorry for being weird. I know you and Aunt Ruth must be worried. Everything will be fine. I promise.”
“You always are.” He grasped her shoulder, gave it a tiny jiggle, and let go. “And you always deliver. So I believe you.”
“Yeah?” she sneaked a look up at him through her lashes.
“Yeah. Always.” He reached out and mussed her hair. “Go sleep. Check in when you can. Make sure you feed the monkey.”
She grinned as they walked out of the building. “Sounds like a euphemism.”
“It isn’t. Get your mind out of the gutter, you monster. Goodnight.” With that, he turned and walked away.
They’d gone through a similar routine thousands of times before. Somehow, that night, it felt a little abrupt.
Reece watched him disappear from sight before she slowly re-entered the headquarters of Smooth.
* * * * *
Schramm remained frustratingly out of touch over the next few days. The few messages he’d sent had all arrived in text form and had ordered Reece to be patient.
Patience wasn’t really her strong suit.
She’d passed the days designing Sage’s new security system, which was now being installed, and training the new recruits. She’d also continued to investigate Nizhoni’s other competitors in case the lead with Allied went nowhere.
While she was accustomed to following digital trails and doing a lot of research at a desk, this job had pushed Reece to her limits. She’d searched. She’d dug. She found absolutely zero useful information. Nothing. No big breaks. No little hints.
Nothing.
It was infuriating.
She leaned forward and rested her head on the desk in front of her. Well, maybe it was more of a bang.
Regardless, it didn’t help. She still had nothing.
Reece was tempted to go kick Reggie’s and Sequoia’s asses again, just to work out some frustration, but it wasn’t fair to take it out on the newbies. They’d progressed well over the past week.
She just wanted to do something. This aimlessness, the sitting around, was driving her crazy.
She wanted to finish this job. Find out who’d attacked Nizhoni. Take care of it. Identify who’d tried to kill Trey. Delete them. Then, she wanted to go home to her life.
Outside of a handful of people, nobody cared what she wanted.
Reece inhaled a long breath and sat up.
The time for waiting was over. She didn’t care how important Schramm’s meetings were. She needed to get out there and do her job.
Decision made, she stood, running her fingers over her waist and her belt, noting all the comforting angles and edges.
Right.
Reece activated her Link.
Trey’s response came a moment later.
As Reece shrugged her jacket on, she felt better. Lighter. More like herself. At least they’d be doing something.
* * * * *
“You sure we should be doing this?” Trey waited until they were within a few minutes of their destination, so either he’d been trying to hold that question back and, at the end, been unable to, or he just wanted to give her a chance to back out.
Like she was going to back out. “Yep. We’re doing this.”
“You realize that Dr. Miral is probably just a scientist who is unrelated to all this, right?”
“Sure. And I’m prepared to be pleasant and simply ask some questions. But I’m also prepared for Dr. Miral to be the face of evil, forcing me to rip that face off and stomp on it repeatedly.”
Trey frowned. “You’re kind of hoping for the second one, aren’t you?”
“It would be convenient and cathartic, but I will accept whatever the reality is. I’m after truth, not what’s convenient.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” Trey said.
“Is it?”
He shrugged. “Eh, maybe a little. Mostly, it just seemed like a nice thing to say.”
“We have a saying here. It’s ‘strike while the iron’s hot’.”
Trey perked up. “Oh, we have that one, too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it means that if you’re replacing one body part with a mod, you might as well do multiples, as long as you’re in there.”
Reece felt her face form an expression of horror. She tried to call it back, but it was no use.
“What?” Trey asked, wide-eyed.
“That’s…not what it means here. Kind of similar, but…our version is less…” She coughed. “Here it means that you shouldn’t wait too long to follow up on something, or you might lose the opportunity. I don’t want Dr. Miral to get away from us.”
“Ah.” Trey nodded. “Similar meanings, but it’s the nuance that makes the difference, isn
’t it?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Right. So are we busting in and rappelling down from the roof to break in through Dr. Miral’s window or something?” he asked.
“I kind of thought we’d try the front door and ask to speak with her.”
“Reasonable.” He nodded.
“We can keep your plan as a backup.”
“Nice. I like being part of the planning committee.” He gave her a thumbs-up.
She laughed. She’d never have admitted it to him, but she had a whole lot more fun at work—even the boring bits like this—since he’d been paired up with her.
Dr. Miral’s lab turned out to be an entirely unassuming single-story building on the outskirts of a commercial district.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Trey said as they got out of the taxi.
“That’s common for research. It often means bankrolling a scientist for decades and getting nothing useful out of it. So the work usually takes place in some lower-cost setting.”
“But it’s all worth it when one of those investments pans out, right?” he asked.
“Exactly.” Reece smoothed her coat and eyed the door. “Ready?”
“To get out of this heat? Yeah. Completely. Hurry up, or I’ll knock your ass out of the way so I can get by.”
She grinned. If she’d ever had an older brother, she imagined he would have said stuff like that to her on a regular basis.
The idea pleased Reece. Trey hadn’t come into her life by accident of birth, but by accident of employment, and that was good enough for her.
* * * * *
Before stepping into the modest building, Reece took a moment to smooth her hair, straighten her jacket, and make sure her guns were visible. She wanted to roll into this place like the corporate hired gun she was, along with everything that implied.
She glanced at Trey, who was studying the building. Having him along at times like this was useful. While they often received hostile looks in public, people mostly left him alone when she was with him, thanks to the fact that she was armed and looked like the hired muscle she was. He didn’t say much about what happened to him when she wasn’t around, but she’d bet money it wasn’t all kind greetings and how-do-you-dos.
In this case, though, the nervousness he elicited from people was a bonus.
“All right.” She nodded. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t move, and she stopped to look back at him. “Something wrong?”
He pursed his lips. “I’ve been a good trainee, right? Learning the ropes about being a corporate fixer, being helpful, not poking you in the eye or subjecting you to any piggish leering.”
“Uh. Yeah.” She considered most of that just being a decent human, but she let the observation slide.
“So how about I get to say when we go this time? I let you lead most of the time, but how about, in some small ways here and there, I get some of the lead? Just to make me feel valued and appreciated.”
Reece had grown accustomed to his deadpan humor, but in this case, she wasn’t entirely sure where the balance between earnestness and joking lay. She decided to go conservative, even though it wasn’t her style in general. “Sure. On things that don’t matter, you can have one hundred percent of the lead. And I’ll work on remembering that you should take the lead on some of the stuff that does matter too.” She shrugged in apology. “I’m working on learning how to be someone’s partner. Just remind me if there’s something I’m not doing right.”
He held up his hand and made a fist. “You got it. And it’s not that you’ve been doing it wrong. I’ve just been starting to feel the pinch of being a subordinate. Which probably means it’s time for me to step up to more responsibility, right?”
She nodded but said nothing.
Trey said nothing.
It got awkward.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “Right.” He squared his shoulders and dropped his voice to a deeply serious tone. “Let’s do this.”
They walked up the pathway with Trey slightly ahead of Reece.
She decided she could afford just a wee bit of teasing. “Nicely done. Couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“Right?” he asked. “Pretty soon, you’ll be entirely expendable. Watch out, sister, this guy’s after your job.”
She grinned, entirely unworried. “I’ll even let you press the button to request entry.”
“Wow. I’m moving up for sure.” Trey pushed the button, very expertly, and they waited for a response.
“Yes?” a voice asked.
“Trey and Reece, representing Rexcare, looking to see Dr. Miral,” Trey said.
“Is she expecting you?”
“No,” Trey answered.
“Transmit your credentials, please.”
Though the security system was basic, it did transmit credentials. Reece and Trey established a connection with the system via the Link and verified their identities.
The system Reece was designing for Sage was so much better than this basic stuff. Chances were, he’d end up toning down some of the protocols she’d set up, because they were just a pain in the butt. He’d asked her for maximum security, though, and that’s what she would provide.
“Verified,” the voice said. “Please enter.”
Reece patted Trey on the shoulder as they did so. “Good job. You did that like a real pro.”
He gave her a wry look. “Congratulating me on doing nothing is going to get old fast.”
“Let’s see exactly how long it takes. You know, for science. Or whatever.”
He smirked.
They approached a reception desk with a young man sitting behind it with a professional smile on his lips. “Hello. Dr. Miral is currently in the lab. She’ll need a little time to finish what she’s doing and come to meet you.”
“This isn’t anything formal,” Trey said. “She doesn’t have to entertain us. Why don’t we go up to the lab and talk to her while she works? If that’s okay with her.”
The young man gave Trey an appraising look, then nodded. “I’ll see if that works for her.”
A moment later, he said. “Yes. Dr. Miral says it’s fine. Just don’t touch anything.”
“Is that you saying that, or is that her?” Trey asked. “Just to be clear.”
“Me.” The receptionist gave Trey a respectably steely look.
If he kept up with that kind of brazenness, he’d move up to working for one of the big four corporations in no time. Reece imagined him with the receptionists in the dragon’s lair at Rexcare, and thought he’d fit in nicely.
“Through the door, first turn to the left, second to the right, and that’s the lab.” The baby dragon waved them in.
Trey said, “Thank you.”
A short walk later, they pushed into Dr. Miral’s lab, which had no additional security.
“One second.” Dr. Miral leaned over a microscope, then straightened and turned to look at them. “Well, you two look very intimidating, don’t you? What could you want from me?”
Reece gave her most disarming smile. “Just an update on your research on enzymatic compounds for Rexcare. That’s all. It’s not a pressure situation. They’re just curious about how soon they’ll be able to move forward.”
Miral bit her lower lip, a speculative look in her eyes. “More than curious, if they’re sending people here instead of just asking me to send a status update.”
“We were in the neighborhood,” Trey said.
“Right.” Miral didn’t look convinced. “Mind if I sit? I spend a lot of time on my feet. I have five minutes while this sample processes, then I’ll move on to the next.”
Trey gestured to the nearby stool. “Of course, give your feet a rest. Is that the enzymatic research for Rexcare there?”
“It is.” Miral sat on the high stool, then pulled her feet up to rest on the rung. She sighed in relief. “I’m putting in fourteen-hour days pushing this along. Frankly, I’m exhausted. I don’t know why an industrial solvent is so im
portant.”
That got Reece’s attention. “Do you feel like Rexcare is unusually eager for this research?”
Miral sighed. “No. Not really. It’s always like this working on contract for corporations. It’s why I prefer to do independent research that I sell after the fact. But that’s not always possible.”
Reece was disappointed. She’d hoped there’d been some kernel of a clue in Rexcare’s apparent impatience. But, not surprisingly, they were just always impatient.
“Would you say that the research is progressing?” Trey asked.
Miral shrugged. “Yes, of course. Though progress isn’t steady with research. Sometimes you have to map out a lot of dead ends before you find the way through. Still, I’m getting closer, and I’ll get there.”
“Based on what you know, and what is desired,” Reece said slowly, thinking out her question as she went, “would you say that Rexcare will make a profit on it?”
“Of course.” Miral answered quickly, without doubt.
Trey asked, “What do you imagine the commercial purposes being?”
Miral shrugged again. “That’s not up to me. That’s up to Rexcare. They may go the straight route of making it a cleansing agent. Hospitals, doctor’s offices, sewage treatment and water reclamation, biohazard messes. That kind of thing. I mean, of course they’ll do that. But they might be able to further develop it into something else. More highly specialized products. Branding. All that corporate stuff. But that’s not my job. My job is the science.”
“But you don’t see anything bigger coming out of it, do you? Some perversion of the product. Like, some sort of fuel or power source. Or…something.” Trey shrugged.
Miral looked at him like a lot of people tended to look at him—like Trey was a weirdo. She hadn’t done that before, though, which Reece appreciated.
“It’s a sanitizer,” Miral said. “That’s it.”
Disappointment. Reece felt it, and she saw it in Trey’s posture, too. This was one of the dead ends Miral had so aptly described earlier. The only link between her work and Nizhoni was Rexcare, which meant that if someone was attacking Nizhoni because of whatever this work might develop, it had to be a competitor.