Cyrus stiffenedas the door opened and Ender walked out. Following behind him wordlessly, he couldn’t help but note that the Gorgon was waddling, and had to suppress the urge to point it out.
Cyrus frowned as he found himself walking into an office, right off the entrance of the Intelligence Center that he’d never seen before. With black walls and floors, there was a single floating brown desk in the room, with a desk chair behind it, and two floating chairs in front.
Nothing else was in the room, aside from the giant fucking mess. Tablets were stacked everywhere; from the desk to the chairs, and even on the floor. There were also some actual paperstacks in the room. The only clear space was a path to the chairs, and one leading off to the right behind the desk.
Ender took the chair behind the desk, waving towards one of the cluttered chairs in front. “Sit.”
Sighing, Cyrus carefully cleared the stuff off the least cluttered chair, setting things on the floor, before even more carefully sitting down, as he did his best to avoid kicking shit over.
Ender eyed him quietly for a moment, before saying, “How would you like to become my lie detector?”
Cyrus blinked. “Excuse me?”
“It would be more of a temporary basis thing, until I manage to narrow down the options and find something better for you to do. But you Fates, I know one of your lesser known talents is that you know when someone is lying to you. And it has nothing to do with listening to body reactions and all that bullshit. You see it, in their threads.”
“I can’t?—”
“You can’t see into them right now, but you can read them in the moment, can’t you?” Ender smirked, his gaze a bit too knowing.
“Killian’s been sharing my secrets, I see.”
Not that he really cared if Ender knew. He’d have told him himself if the Gorgon had asked.
“Aww, your snookums is worried.”
He snorted. “I dare you to call him that to his face.”
Ender laughed. “No, I don’t think I will. Anyway, as I was saying, you know when something that's been said is off. I’m not sure what you see or how, I just know that it’s true.”
“Mostly true, I suppose.”
If he dropped the veil down as he talked to someone, and really kept watch, he usually could tell whenever someone lied. Because anytime someone lied, their threads, for a briefmoment, would dim ever so slightly—subtle, yet still noticeable. But that would only work if the person knew they were lying. It got a bit muddled when it came to half-truths, and people just being unsure of what the truth was at all.
“What I also know to be true is that you hate being a bodyguard.”
Cyrus sighed and admitted, “I do.”
“Then it’s settled! At tomorrow’s meeting, I want you to join the table. No zoning out, as I know you have been doing for the last few weeks, because—” Ender’s nose wrinkled. “—afterwards, we’ll be meeting up with someone rather unsavory.”
He frowned and hesitantly said, “Okay…?”
Why did Cyrus have a feeling that he wasn’t going to like where this was going?
Seri sat there on the side of the bed, biting his right thumbnail, while doing his best to not panic as he waited for Severo to finish showering.
It would be fine. He was sure he was just overreacting…maybe.
He flinched when the door to the bathroom opened and Severo walked out. A towel wrapped around his waist, he was using another to dry his hair.
The Dweller stopped in his tracks on catching sight of him, the man’s brow raising in question as he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Possibly…nothing?” Seri winced.
Severo slowly walked over to him. After tossing the towel he’d been using for his hair onto the bed, he grabbed hold of hishands and lightly traced a thumb over one of his poor gnawed-on nails. “Well, whatever it is, problem or not, it’s obviously making you anxious. So, tell me, and we can decide together if anything should be done, hmm?”
As the Shadow Dweller smiled carefully down at him, Seri relaxed slightly. “Remember Emmet Finley?”
“I do. You met with him about five weeks ago, didn’t you? Around the time shit went to hell at the Bureau,” Severo said, before frowning and adding, “I am also now remembering that you mentioned something about possible illegal experiments and him likely being in danger.”
