She shook her head. Havel had asked almost the same thing. “What is it I don’t know?”
“Coders like their jobs. They’re not jobs to them. Each project is a puzzle to be solved and coders love solving puzzles. They will stay on the job until exhaustion drops them or until they are finished.” His amusement disappeared. He was back to staring at her with the same steady, neutral expression as before. “I will be here when you are.”
“That’s why you wanted the Aventine apartment….” she said slowly.
“Very good.” His tone was approving. Then he was back to scowling, only this time, his gaze was not on her. It was on something behind her. She whirled. There were more screens on the shelf next to the door.
“Excuse me,” Thorn said. “Arri, get Kaj.”
“Connecting,” came a disembodied male voice.
Laura sucked in a breath, trying to calm her heart. She knew that name. Kaj Honeycutt was the head of the organic coders, the director of the Institute of Organic Coding Professionals.
“Micah,” came a man’s impatient voice.
“You’ve inverted the sequence of the nucleotide array in module three hundred and fifteen.”
“You’re scanning my code again, Micah?”
“You know I find errors no one else can,” Thorn said shortly.
“I’ll look at the module again.”
There was an audible click that Laura assumed meant the voice connection had been broken.
“Who is Arri?” she asked. It seemed safer to ask about the other person, than to talk about the fact that Thorn had corrected the work of the head of the institute itself.
“The house…actually, no, this office’s AI.”
“You have your own AI? With a voice?”
“I gave it the voice. Otherwise it is a perfectly normal AI.” Thorn crossed his arms and resettled on the hard shelf. “I apologize for the inconvenience that meeting the obligations of your note will bring you, Ms. Hyland. However, you have unique resources that will help me with my supply and demand research.”
“This is nothing to do with your job, then?” she asked carefully.
“I will be doing my job even as I work on the research,” he said dismissively. “I am scanning code as we speak.”
She shivered. He had spotted an error while he had been talking to her. She had no doubt he could do what he said.
“What resources do I have?” she asked, instead. That she had anything of value at all surprised her.
“Resources that are of value only to me,” Thorn said. “You will come to understand this, later. The subjective value of anything is as powerful as the promissory note that brought you here.” He gave a tiny shrug. “You are popular, Ms. Hyland. You are well known across the ship. People adore you, while I…am not liked.”
She stared at him. It would be hard enough to have a reputation like his. To also be aware of it in that way would be worse.
Thorn got to his feet and just for a second he leaned forward, as if his balance was uncertain. Then he straightened up with a snap. “Tomorrow, as soon as your shift has ended, Ms. Hyland, you will report here.”
“An hour later than that,” she replied. “Unless you really want me here in boots and plasteel overalls, with my tools hanging from my belt?”
He hesitated. “Very well, an hour after your shift has ended. Thank you, Ms. Hyland.”
“Call me Laura,” she told him. “Everyone does.”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “I don’t know you nearly well enough for that.”
Chapter Four
Laura had heard people talk about how subjective time could be, although she had never experienced it herself until the next day when she rose and got ready for the day. She dreaded having to work with Micah Thorn. It was made worse by the fact that she didn’t know what he wanted her to do. Mostly, her deep reluctance came from how uncomfortable he made her. It was the scowl, the stare, the constant references to things that she had never heard of, that made her head spin and made her feel particularly ignorant.
Her basic education had been as thorough as anyone’s on the ship, so why did she not know the things Micah Thorn did? Why did anyone study maps of places they would never visit?
She went about her day, wishing it would stretch on endlessly the way some of the more repetitive days did. Instead, it zoomed along faster than she thought time really should, while she debated with herself about Thorn. It still wasn’t too late to pull out of the deal. She could default on the note, have it posted publically and live with the consequences.
Only, the consequences included having to move back to the Wall and she simply couldn’t do that. She couldn’t bare even thinking about it. So she would turn up as promised, despite her resentment.
Who did research projects in their spare time, anyway? Everyone she knew had hobbies and avocations. They were all creative and fun. Painting. Designing clothes. Music. Some of the avocations were creative by virtue of their concept. Keton Hobson collected apple seeds and strung them together to make pretty jewelry. There were other, stranger hobbies.
No one thought research was fun, though.
At the end of the shift, she walked reluctantly back through the Field to her house. It took far too little time to get there.
She halted at the door. There was a bag sitting on the wide, low step, propped against the door itself. It was one of the green all-purpose bags that most of the ship used and reused for thousands of reasons and purposes. No one owned the bags, yet everyone had a stash of them to use as needed. They were ubiquitous, virtually indestructible, waterproof, sealable, washable and flexible. They were almost invisible, because it was what was inside them that was of concern to anyone.
Laura pushed the toe of her boot against the bag experimentally. For a moment, she wondered if Micah Thorn would have something to say about the supply and demand of the green bags.
There was something solid inside the bag, only not solid enough to stop her toe from depressing the surface just a little.
Cautiously, she opened the top of the bag and looked inside.
It was soil. Rich, dark and loamy, the sort of soil that developed from well-tilled and mulched earth. She could almost smell the goodness.
Laura glanced around. No one was hovering, watching her discover the gift.
Time was pressing on her, so she scooped up the bag and opened the door and hurried into the house to clean up and dress in something more appropriate for the organic coders suite.
She had to wait until she was on the train to connect with Tivoli. He looked at her with a huge smile. “Hey, Laura!”
“Was it you?” she asked, keeping her voice down because the carriage was full.
“Was it me, what?”
“Is that Laura?” she heard in the background. Keton’s round face beamed at her from over Tivoli’s shoulder. “Hi, Laura. Come and have a drink with us. Anika and Simon are here, too.”
“I can’t, sorry,” she told Keton. “I wish I could. Simon is such fun and I’ve had a terrible day. Days,” she amended. “I’ve got to…I have some things I have to do. I just wanted to know if it was you, Tivoli, who left the soil.”
Tivoli grinned. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Left the soil where?”
“On my front doorstep.”
Keton looked pleased. “Someone gave you a bag of soil? That’s nice.”
“Maybe it was Oskar?” Tivoli suggested.
“I’ll have to ask him. Thanks. I have to go, sorry. Have a drink for me.”
She blanked the screen as Tivoli and Keton waved at her, then connected to Oskar. He had long ago given her his private code instead of the public one that was available on the Forum and he answered straight away, with his warm smile. “Hey, Laura. You look beautiful as always. Are you on the train?”
“Hello, Oskar.” She could feel her own smile warming. Oskar was easy company, fun to be with and sincere in his own way. “I wanted to thank you.”
“For what?”
“For the bag of soil you left on my doorstep.”
He looked astonished. “Someone dumped a bag of dirt on your step and you think it was me?”
“No, this was a good thing,” she hastened to assure him. “I told you how I lost my garden, remember?”
His frown disappeared. “Right,” he said. Then he smiled again. “Well, I wish I’d thought of doing that so I could feel all good about you thanking me, but it wasn’t me. Are you coming to the game tonight?”
She realized belatedly that it was the team locker room she could see behind him. “I’m sorry, Oskar. Not tonight. This garden thing has my life tipped upside down at the moment. It could be a while before I get to another game.”
His cheer faded. “Are you ending things, Laura?”
“No!” she said firmly. “I’m saying exactly what I’m saying and that’s all. I just won’t be able to get to games for a while.”
“That’s the only time I see you,” he pointed out.
She bit her lip. “Sorry,” she said, her voice low.
“I’m sorry, too,” he said heavily. “See you, Laura.”
The screen flipped back to the default view and she stared at the star field that was the same as the star field outside the ship and drew in a shaky breath. She had been discarded. Just like that.
She pulled up her journal, to the day’s notes. Nothing came to her. Finally, she wrote in her own shorthand, Oskar broke up with me because of Micah Thorn. The details she was normally careful to include so that later, she could remember properly, wouldn’t come to her now.
She put the journal away and stared out the window and tried to tell herself this would all work out. She still had her house. That was a good thing, too.
It didn’t stop her eyes from stinging.
* * * * *
It looked as though no one had moved from their desks since the day before. They all wore the same clothes, except for the woman who had gone to tell Micah Thorn someone wanted to speak to him. The woman’s shirt was blue instead of green.
The other change was that the door to the suite opened as Laura approached it. She looked at the thumb pad, then at the open door.
Havel waved her in. “I set up a retina scan for you. Micah says you’re going to do some work for him.”
The door closed behind her.
“She’s braver than you, Havel,” Amil, the gray-haired man, said from behind his screen.
“I’m not arguing with that,” Havel said, grinning.
“You’re really working for him?” the woman asked curiously. “I’m Rose, by the way.”
“Hi, Rose. Thorn is holding one of my notes. I’m working it off,” Laura said. “I don’t know what he wants me to do. Do you?”
“No idea.” The woman looked her up and down speculatively.
“I don’t think it’s anything like that,” Laura said quickly.
“With Micah Thorn?” She snorted and turned back to her screen. “I have no doubt about that. He’s not a man, anyway.”
Laura sighed and looked around the room. “Should I go through to his office?” she asked.
Havel frowned. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“I’ll do it from here. I don’t even have to talk to him.”
“Rose had to go to the office, yesterday….”
Rose shrugged. “I wanted to see Micah’s face when I told him there was a stunning woman waiting to see him.”
“Oh.”
Rose laughed. “Not that it got me anywhere. Plate-face, as usual.”
Havel sat back. “I’ve told him. Have a seat, Laura.”
She looked around. There were no spare seats anywhere. The only chairs were those behind each desk and they were being used.
“I guess we’d better get her a chair,” Amil said.
“You will need to arrange a desk and screen for her, too,” Micah Thorn said from the doorway into the back corridor. He had appeared there as silently as he had yesterday.
“I’m not a coder!” Laura said quickly, as Amil and Havel and the man with shaggy orange hair and freckles got instantly to their feet.
“You won’t be coding,” Thorn replied. “Come through. I will explain your work to you.” He turned and went back to his office, not waiting for her.
Laura suppressed her sigh and walked around the double row of desks and over to the door, following him.
Thorn’s office hadn’t changed an inch. Neither had he. He was still wearing black from neck to toe, except that today, the jacket had no collar. It seemed to draw attention to the width of his neck, which was strong.
He surprised her by pointing to a screen.
“The Forum?” she asked, puzzled. “I could pull that up on my board,” she pointed out. “No desk necessary.”
“You’ll need the fully automated desk,” he assured her. “It will give you access to the suite’s AI, who will help you compile the data I need.”
“Which is…?”
Thorn pulled up Kelly Peck’s public profile. His 3D image looked slimmer than the real version. Kelly was due for a new scan, clearly. On the other side from his revolving figure were the public notices. Many of them had the icon that indicated they were promissory notes.
“I want you to examine every promissory note and give me your analysis of it,” Thorn said.
“Analysis?”
He scrolled through the notices on Kelly’s profile, then pointed to one. “There, for instance. Kelly took a note from Jadran Patrick, promising a bolt of parasilk for a pound of hand-ground flour.”
“I see that,” Laura said patiently.
Thorn lifted his hand, palm up, toward the note. “Peck barters produce. Why would he take parasilk and why a whole bolt of it for a pound of flour? And why, if he was interested in garments, would he take unconstructed fabric?”
“Oh….” Laura pressed her fingertip to her lip, thinking. She had seen Kelly make dozens, if not hundreds of these types of barters before. “Scroll up, to deals made later than that one. Slowly!” she added.
Thorn paged up slowly.
“There,” Laura said, pointing. “He traded the parasilk for six baskets of cherries. Wow, that was a deal,” she added.
Thorn tilted his head to one side. “Why would this woman, Paula, take a mere bolt of parasilk for all those cherries?”
“Because she lives in the Palatine. I think she has a cherry tree next to her house,” Laura explained. “That’s why Kelly made the trade with Jadran for the silk. Oh…wow, now I understand,” she breathed. “Jadran wanted the flour because he makes muffins for the café in the marketplace in the Esquiline. His partner, Benji, has some secret pattern for printing the softest, bluest parasilk I’ve ever seen or felt. So he can get the silk easily, but not the flour. So Kelly took the silk and gave him the flour.” She looked at the date on the note. “Two months later, when the cherries were ripe, he traded the silk to Paula for her six baskets of cherries, which were almost worthless to her. Kelly would have traded those cherries and got back far, far more than a bolt of silk in return. Everyone loves cherries.”
She shook her head in admiration. “That means Kelly had figured out this three-sided deal at least two months before. I had no idea how smart he was about all this.”
Thorn nodded. “He understands supply and demand intuitively. Most people only understand their own personal needs and miss the other side of it. This is where your popularity will serve me. You know these people and understand the reasoning behind the deals…or you will, once you examine them in this way. I want you to go through every note and analyze it, matching up multi-step transactions just as you did with this one. I suspect it is not the only double-deal he made. He has a flair for the work.”
“Every single note Kelly as ever held? There must be hundreds of them!”
Thorn shook his head. “Every single note, ever.”
Laura stared at him. “There are thousands of them.”
Thorn crossed his arms. “I have two years of your time,” he reminded her.
Horror spilled through her. Two years of no life beyond work and then more work after that? Two years of watching other people have fun while she slaved away?
“Do we have a problem, Ms. Hyland?”
Think of the house, she commanded herself. She shook her head. Her heart was thumping unhappily.
Thorn shut off the screen. “I can see you have concerns, so let me lighten the deal with an incentive.” He nodded toward the space where the screen had been. “Once you have finished the analysis—all of it—I will cancel your note.”
Her heart just thudded harder. “What if I finish in a week?” she asked. Her lips felt thick and uncooperative.
His smile was the same as the only other smile of his she had seen. It was brief, yet completely changed his appearance. “If you do manage to finish the work in a week, I will cancel the note in that same moment. I doubt you will be done that quickly, though. No one works as hard as me.”
“Even you couldn’t do it in a week,” she replied. She glanced around the sterile room once more. “I’d better go and get started. I want my life back sooner, rather than later.”
Chapter Five
Laura’s life after that became exactly what she had predicted it would—an endless series of sleep, work, Micah’s work, then back to her house to sleep and start again. Micah Thorn did not insist she work so hard. Instead, by dangling the bait of an early release from her note, he had ensured she would work all the hours she could squeeze into her day to get the job done as quickly as possible, with or without his encouragement.
It was as well that Oskar had broken off their relationship so quickly and lightly. If he had not, then she would have had to let him down repeatedly for the next few months, until the relationship fell apart all by itself. It was cleaner this way.
Promissory Note Page 4