Nodding, he lifts the cavrinskh up like it’s no heavier than a pillow and heads for his bike.
“You should come to the next meeting.”
He pauses and looks back at me over his shoulder.
“You know I can’t. And you know why, too.” Turning to face me, he says, “Don’t make trouble where none exists… or Drift might exile you from them as well.”
“If Arc hasn’t been kicked out yet, there’s nothing I can do to make that happen.”
He grimaces. “There’s nothing any of you can do.”
Because Drift isn’t scared of Fault’s size… he’s scared of where Fault came from.
But Fault’s kept our secrets for years. I won’t ever betray his.
He leaves me, standing alone in the middle of Kilo’s sector, looking after him. It hasn’t been long enough for most of the brothers to notice Arc’s broken his routine. But Fault is right. They will.
Getting on my own bike and heading back to our outpost, I don’t know what he’ll decide to do when I mention it.
He doesn’t want to be away from her. None of us do.
But, we are going to have to find a balance when she’s decided to stay.
I don’t know if Shock’s seen that future yet, but I know, more certainly than I have known anything in my life, she’s meant to be here with us.
Chrys and Shock aren’t back yet when I pull into the garage, and Arc doesn’t need to hear my thoughts, so I don’t leave the garage once my bike is put away and the fuel cells are safely stowed in their charging stations.
Our outpost has something the others don’t… because we don’t have thermal pools or conduits, the lowest level of the outpost is big enough for a fabrication shop. In my down time, I use working here as an excuse to wait for Arc to get back. From the workbench, I can see the door that opens into the caldera.
Today… Today I have something different in mind.
Pulling down pipes and setting up the torch, I lay out the structure before I start to weld. I don’t need to measure… the dimensions come to mind at will.
I’ll work until the others are back, andthenI’ll force Arc to hear my thoughts again and see how well, or poorly, he takes them.
ARC
I don’t like that they’re not back yet.
I don’t like that I don’t know how long it should take for them to get back.
They’re probably completely within the reasonable timeline… but not knowing makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
I need a distraction, and Risk has chosen to stay downstairs, so there’s only one readily available.
Pulling the next delivery out of the drone drop, I dial the number for Drift’s CSS contact.
The Continental Security Service doesn’t bother us most of the time, but we do fall under their purview as far as the governing bodies are concerned, so some sort of a liaison was necessary.
My brief interactions with him have never been… bad, but I’ve also never voluntarily spent time around him when I might be subject to his unfiltered thoughts.
Let’s hope that isn’t a problem.
When the call connects, Riann doesn’t look at me. “What can I help the brotherhood with this time?”
I can’t hear his thoughts through the comm—that is its own kind of blessing—but I’ve heard them enough in the past to know he’s not annoyed by my call. He’s just tired of the other parts of his job.
Bureaucracy is only amusing to a specific set of people; he isn’t one of them.
