He promptly opened the door again, pushing in a present that was actually wrapped this time in silver paper with a pretty white ribbon around it.
Apparently Cameron had the hearing of a bat, as he didn’t budge until he heard her move.
Not sure what this one was, but getting more into the spirit of the game he was playing, she more promptly scooted over and picked up the present. Not bothering to retreat the whole way, she did scoot back about two feet before tearing off the paper.
She’d had no idea what to expect, but even still, this was outside her expectations. It was a hard case protector, designed to protect electronics from EMP, merlins, or any other electronic-like energy bursts. They weren’t exactly expensive, but they were not by any means cheap or easily come by. In fact, she’d bookmarked one as a potential birthday present her siblings could get her but had been too cheap to buy herself.
The thought it took to think of this gift, practical but luxurious at the same time, touched her. How long had it taken for him to come up with this idea?
The door cracked open again and a white handkerchief was waved. “Safe to come in yet?”
Noriko had to swallow to re-find her voice. “Come in.”
Opening the door, Cameron slid inside like a hunter entering a known predator’s lair. He watched her face and body language for any and every nuance, and his expression screamed caution.
To put him at ease, she smiled at him and raised the gift. “However did you think of this?”
His tension fled at her smile and he grinned back. “You’re welcome. I admit I was a bit stumped at first, we don’t know each other well enough to guess at likes and dislikes, but I knew you’d need one of these in the future. To avoid, you know, what happened.”
Yes, they couldn’t avoid that topic. Noriko’s eyes fell to the present in her lap and she chewed on her bottom lip. What to say? How to say it? She wasn’t mad anymore, but….
“Hey.” Cameron sank onto his haunches and tilted his head sideways, trying to meet her eyes. “Hey, don’t look like that, Spidey. Look, we were both tired, right? Exhausted. Past exhausted. And we’re stressed out because weird crap keeps happening, and it’s dangerous, and we’re not sure how to handle it. All of that on top of being in a new place, with a new job. It’s crazy. We were bound to hit a limit at some point.”
While all of that was true, it sounded like an excuse. Noriko hated excuses. “So when it all hits the fan, you yell at people?”
“Not usually, I admit.” His tone became very gentle. “I just got mad. You were nearly grey, you know? And there was a fine tremor in your body and I was afraid that you’d collapse right in front of me. It didn’t make any sense that you were so set on replacing your phone right then and there.”
This sounded like he was going to re-start the argument again, if in a more reasonable tone. Her back automatically went up. “You still want to argue that?”
“Nope, don’t need to. In hindsight, I realize my mistake. I was arguing with a tired woman and that is never, ever a good idea.”
Well, yes, that was true, but…. “Cameron, even if I wasn’t that tired, I would have gone immediately to replace my phone, y’know?”
“Yeah, Spidey, I get that.” There was no anger on his face, no judgment, no readiness to leap back into the fray. Just calm acceptance. “I get that it’s important to you to follow the rules. Do you get that if you weren’t that exhausted and shaky, I wouldn’t have been arguing the point to begin with?”
Noriko looked at the present in her hands, the icing shots, the radio band he had replaced that was now on her wrist, and back up at him. It had to have taken him at least two hours to gather up all of this. Two hours of his time when most would have tried a simple apology first. How much did she mean to this man? There had been times when she wasn’t sure what he really thought of her. He liked working with her, he liked teasing her, but she had never seen much past the surface. That smile of his was like a mask to what he was thinking.
The saying went that actions speak louder than words. He had not once said ‘I’m sorry,’ but the presents all around her were nearly thunderous with their intent. “Honestly, I no longer remember the argument well enough to figure out what we were even arguing about,” she admitted.
He choked, then laughed outright. “Seriously?”
A little shame-faced, she nodded, and went back to chewing on her bottom lip.
“What do you remember?” he asked, still laughing.
“That you were mad, that I was surprised to hear myself yelling at you, and it was all about me not going to get a new phone.” Reviewing it in her head, she offered, “I think you were in the stairs because of a pizza delivery?”
“Oh boy. Seriously? That’s all you remember?”
The way he asked that worried her. “What more did I say?”
Cameron raised both hands in surrender. “No way am I re-hashing it all. If you don’t remember, that’s for the better. It was a stupid argument to begin with and if we’d been less punch-drunk, I doubt it would have happened at all.”
Now that much she did remember. Noriko felt like she owed something to him. He’d had the courage to come to her first and try to smooth things over, and he was being perfectly honest about everything without trying to hide. The least she could do would be to meet him halfway. “Cameron. I like working with you.”
That stopped him dead, and he stared at her with growing delight. “Yeah?”
“You’re the best partner I’ve ever worked with,” she continued, “and I don’t think I’ll ever find a person that matches me better when it comes to syncing power. I like how hard you work. I just worry, sometimes, because our personalities are so different from each other. We’re like oil and water.”
“Sometimes, yeah,” he admitted freely. “But you know, I don’t think it’ll always be that way. We really haven’t known each other long. A month? Less than that, actually. We’re still figuring out where the lines are with each other, and when not to cross them, and that just takes time. We didn’t get the calm, quiet time we needed to figure each other out before insanity ensued.”
Noriko felt a sort of maniacal hysteria rise in her throat. “That’s such an understatement.”
“Right? So I think we shouldn’t leap to any conclusions yet. Yeah, we’re different from each other, but no one’s exactly the same. You’re right—we work really well together, and I’d hate to lose that because we’re not sure if we’re going to drive each other crazy. So let’s give this a proper go, okay? Don’t give up. At least, not yet.”
What was it about him that made her think that everything would work out wonderfully? This enthusiasm of his was catching, and she felt herself being swept up in it. What he was asking for was simple: time. Time for them to really know each other better. How could she possibly say no to that? With a firm nod, she agreed, “Not yet. You’re right, three weeks isn’t enough time to make any sort of judgments.”
His smile went bright and wide. “Exactly.”
“I do have two questions for you.”
The smile dimmed a little. “Questions? Okay, shoot.”
“First, how did you know my password?” she inclined her head toward the door.
Without batting an eye, he admitted, “Sam.”
She huffed out an amused breath. Of course. Of course it was Sam. Sam had learned it by taking her home last night. “And how did you know about the icing and the radio band? Sam?”
“Tye.”
Her eyes went wide. “Both of them?”
“I might have tracked Sam’s apartment down through a little illegal hacking and knocked on her door this morning,” he offered with a completely straight face. “If a man looks pitiful and spins the story right, you wouldn’t believe what information he can get out of a girl’s best friends.”
T-t-that…ooooh….there wasn’t a word to describe him! “I seriously don’t know whether to laugh or hit you.”
“The women o
f my acquaintance generally do both.” Even as he admitted this, he raised both hands in a half-defensive posture, as if braced for her to take a swing at him.
She held firm for all of three seconds before laughter won out.
“That’s the smile I was working for. You know, when you laugh like that, your eyes disappear into this half-moon shape. It’s really cute.”
For that, she did hit him.
“Oww! Jeez, it was a compliment. Now, I have a question for you.” He dropped his arms and asked seriously, “Your password. Asphalt? Why asphalt?”
Noriko stared at him. “Is that really my password?”
“You don’t remember?” he demanded in astonishment. “Ooookay. Spidey? My lovely Spidey, from now on, you are not to make any decisions when sleep deprived.”
Considering the events of the past twenty-four hours, she really didn’t have a leg to stand on.
15th Merlin
After a full day of rest and relaxation (actually, she had spent part of that time doing school assignments), Noriko returned to work. She walked into the office and frowned when she realized that no one else was there yet. Granted, she was early, but not that early. It was only fifteen minutes ’til. Had something else happened?
“Rare to see the room empty,” Cameron observed as he walked in. Slinging his bag under the desk, he sank into his chair. “I wonder if everyone is just running late.”
Maybe that was it. Noriko admitted that she was now a little paranoid. Emergencies were constantly cropping up, and being in this room, not knowing where everybody else was, felt unnerving.
She sat at her desk and opened her message app, as her phone had dinged on the way into the station. The message was from Sam and read: Things better with him today?
Yeah, we made up, she sent back. But to her it still felt awkward. Even though she didn’t remember most of the fight, she remembered being stupid and it left a strange aftertaste in her mouth.
To cover up the silence, she asked, “What do you think we’ll do today?”
“Probably some investigation. I mean, we still have the test cell explosion to figure out, and those ley lines, so either way we’re going to be outside doing some poking around.”
That was very likely. “Since we’re tasked with helping Frank Goudie, I bet it’ll be at the Lab.”
“Probably.” He gave her a once over. “You packed sunscreen, right? Cause you got a little sunburned when we were at the weigh station.”
She hadn’t thought to protect herself from the sun, and after three hours of exposure, she had been a little pink. “I’ve got a tube in my bag. Do you really not—” she cut herself off as her phone rang. Noriko frowned down at it. She recognized the number, all too well, from a survey company. That she didn’t have anything to do with. This would make the sixth call in the past month, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out how to make them leave her alone.
“Problem?” Cameron asked, peeking over her shoulder to see the number scrawled out along the band.
“Telemarketer,” she explained, still frowning. “From a company that I don’t have any connection to. I can’t get them to stop calling.”
With a ‘give it here’ gesture, Cameron took it from her and answered, “Hello?”
“Hello, I’m looking for Noriko Arashi.”
Cameron deepened his voice. “This is she.”
There was an audible mental hiccup over the line.
At that moment Noriko decided the safest thing to do would be to sit properly in a chair, because otherwise she was sure to hit the ground laughing. Cameron had that glint in his eye that suggested that this was going to be good.
Now clearly uncertain how to address him, the telemarketer continued, “I’m calling on behalf of the Geographical Survey for—”
“Geographical survey?” he repeated with sweet, innocent confusion.
“That’s right, sir, ah, ma’am, specifically dealing with underground rights—”
“Underground? Oh, you mean where the lizards are.”
This time the mental hiccup was more pronounced—dead air for two full seconds. “I’m sorry?”
“The lizards. The giant lizards that live in cities under the ground. You do know about them, right? Wait, maybe you don’t. Not a lot of people do. Listen, okay, this is very important. There are giant lizards that live under the crust of the earth and they survive by feeding off of us. They control us with specific energy that’s way, way advanced for us, we can’t understand how it works, we just know that it does. It controls us, makes us angry, and depressed, and every negative emotion you can name. They feed off our negative emotions. The reason why we have all of these wars in history? It’s the lizards, man, the lizards feed best when whole nations are fighting against each other. Can you imagine? The fighting, and the injuries, and the rage, all of that is like a banquet to them, man. A freakin’ feast.”
“O-oh. I see. I mean, is that right. Ah, well, and what do we do about that?”
“Only one thing to do. Weed, man. You got to stay high. If you’re high, you don’t feel all of that negative energy, it’s hard for them to connect with us, so we feel good. And if we all feel good, then no one gets into war or any of that, and we achieve world peace. Can you imagine? It’ll be sweet. If we can all get high, it’ll starve the lizards, and they won’t be able to survive. We’ll have a peaceful world at last. You feeling me on this?”
“I’m feeling you, absolutely. Stay high, okay?”
“You too, stay high. Don’t let them lizards win and stay high.”
“You have a good day now.” Click.
Cameron looked down to find his partner on the floor, holding her stomach with both hands, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. “Whatcha doin’ down there, Spidey?”
“Safest place to be,” she gasped, struggling to breathe through her silent laughing fit. She hadn’t dared let herself be heard for fear of missing what Cameron was saying. “Cam, please, please tell me that you will handle all of my telemarketer calls from now on?”
“It’ll be a pleasure,” he assured her genially, offering a hand up.
It was at that moment that their captain walked in. He took one look at the situation and rolled his eyes. “Powers, what did you do this time?”
A thought struck and Noriko hopped to her feet. “Sir. This room has audio and visual recording, correct?”
“Correct. Why?”
She threw a fist pump into the air. “YES! Be back in five.” That said, she raced out of the room. If she was very charming, she might get the security guys to cut a sound clip of the conversation. Cameron’s story was too priceless, she simply had to share.
By the time she made it back to the room, the whole team had assembled except Banderas. Noriko stopped in the dead center of the room and cleared her throat loudly. “Attention. Your attention please. I have something that I must share with you.”
Cameron grinned at her, his feet kicked up on his desk. “You got it?”
“I got it.” Everyone else was confused, of course, but they closed in on the laptop in her hands. “Please listen and enjoy.”
Noriko laughed just as hard as she watched the fresh reactions of her co-workers who had unfortunately missed the original rendition. Even Lizzie was hanging off the chair and begging for mercy.
The only person not laughing was their coordinator, Jack. Noriko still wasn’t sure how his sense of humor worked. He didn’t react much at all except a brief twitch of the eyebrows. As the recording ended, he turned to Cameron. “Powers. They’re reacting as if this hasn’t already been validated.”
The room went dead silent, so still that a dropped pin would have sounded like a war drum.
Cameron went still as well and his demeanor become very serious. “You’ve read the file, sir?”
“I have, Powers, I have. It’s a matter of national security after all.”
“Ah,” Lars lifted a finger in the air, “what are you two talking about?
This was just a joke, right?”
“That’s above your pay grade, Torvald.”
Lars jabbed a finger in Cameron’s direction. “He’s in the same pay grade!”
“That’s classified.” With a knowing look at Cameron, he gave a slight nod before quietly exiting the room.
They stared uneasily after him. Lizzie cleared her throat slightly. “Ah…he wasn’t serious. Was he?”
Cameron’s mouth twitched, as if he were fighting a sneeze, then he abruptly doubled over in a laughing fit.
At that point it clicked and Noriko rolled her eyes. “He was playing along with you.”
Lars drawled, “Did you two work that out beforehand, Cam?”
“Completely improv,” Cameron denied, wheezing as he got his breath back.
Banderas chose that moment to enter the room, although he didn’t do more than just pop his head around the doorframe. “Get ready to roll, people. We’re moving out. Frank Goudie has requested we go to the Lab today. Our goals are cleanup but also we’re looking for any further evidence of what happened. So look sharp.”
Still chuckling to themselves, sometimes quoting their favorite line, they all grabbed their gear and shuffled out. As they moved, Noriko heard Lars join Cameron behind her.
“Cam, I do have a serious question for you.”
“Shoot,” Cameron encouraged.
“I’ve been wondering this for a while, but… Why are your toenails purple?”
Noriko’s eyes flared wide in realization. He still hadn’t taken the toenail polish off?! She whipped around to stare at him, spluttering. Why would he show up to work with the polish still on and wearing flip flops?
Cameron caught her reaction and cast her a wink before he drawled, “Classified.”
16th Merlin
Being out in the Mojave Desert in the later part of the afternoon was very different than doing it at night. Even at five o’clock, it remained hot enough to bake an egg on the pavement, the air sucking every bit of moisture out of a person. Noriko wasn’t used to this kind of dry heat. She drank water bottle after water bottle, trying to stay hydrated, and felt like she was in a losing battle.
Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1) Page 15