Fred sits in the center of what was once a large conference room, taped to an office chair and very effectively restrained. He woke some time ago and promptly exhausted himself and angered us all by proving that no one can hear him scream. Now, he is sweaty, mad and very afraid.
In our planning, we discovered that the building next to SmarTech is available for rent, making it the perfect secondary location, since it is empty, isolated, and we are close enough that Madison can access the SmarTech network wirelessly. She set up some equipment I recognize from Wesley’s home office in this conference room, taking over the end of a long table.
But she is not at her station—she is on her feet, standing before our hostage, and the sharp crack of her slap rings out around us. She yells something at him in Spanish, and I must assume from her tone that it is an insult since I do not speak the language.
“Madison!” I admonish sharply.
She turns to me, shock plain in her expression that I would scold her when she is trying to be intimidating. But she does not need to be intimidating; she needs to be effective.
“You will injure your hand doing it that way. You must shape it to create a small cavity,” I explain, adjusting her hand into the proper position, cupped with a space in the center. “Then, when you slap, aim for the ear. If you can get enough force behind it, you will break his eardrum.”
Fred’s eyes go wide, and he flinches as she slaps him again, making a grunting noise of pain and dropping his ear to his shoulder to soothe the sensation in the aftermath.
“Oh, yeah, that’s way better,” Madison says approvingly, turning to Eleanor, who is watching with grim fascination. “You wanna try?”
Her eyes light up. “Ooh, yeah!”
Fred’s eyes narrow on her. “You’re making a big mistake,” he tells her, obviously zeroing in on the innocent appearance of her open face. “You… you don’t look like a killer. You don’t want to hurt me. Think about what you’re doing! This is torture—you’re about to torture someone!”
She hesitates and glances at Madison. “He helped create that software? Or, like, he knows what it does, and wants to make a profit off it?”
Madison nods.
“Then, yeah. I don’t feel bad about this,” Eleanor says, her tone full of a darker kind of purpose. She flexes her hand, then twists to wind up for her blow.
“Wait. You are supposed to ask him something first,” I remind her. “This is an interrogation.”
Eleanor stops, stumped. Then, she steps up to him and slaps him the same way Madison did, shaking out her hand as she demands, “What’s your password?”
“We don’t need him to tell us,” Madison says. “We’ve got his phone and his fingerprint. I bet he keeps all his passwords in that app on his phone.”
“Oh,” Eleanor says. She hits him again. “Where’s the Joker?” she demands in a low, garbled voice I have never heard before.
“That was a pretty good Batman, darlin’,”Mac compliments from somewhere in a nearby building where he is setting up his rifle.
She slaps him again, and a pathetic whimper slips through his lips with a string of spit that lands on the lapel of his suit jacket.
I chuckle, and Madison turns to me, shocked by the noise. “She looks sweet but is bloodthirsty. It is very amusing,” I explain.
Since they clearly have this interrogation under control, I go to Nicole, who is standing in the corner of the room, watching with her arms crossed and wearing a faintly amused smile. I want to shield her with my body from the unpleasantness, but instead I stand next to her. The only reason I allowed her participation was that she agreed to carry a gun and stay away from the danger. She argued that Eleanor and Madison could not be left alone with this man Fred—she claims they rile each other up. It seems she was right.
“You’re going to miss this, huh?” she asks as I settle against the wall next to her.
“What?”
“Teaching. Doing something useful with all those skills you’ve got. Passing them on.”
I consider this. Once Wesley has taken the Gener-AI program offline and there are no more jobs to complete, there will be little reason to continue to train with the others. But I have enjoyed training with them very much, so I decide,“Da.”
For some reason, this causes Nicole’s eyes to fill with tears—an alarming occurrence that has become more frequent lately. She assures me it is completely hormonally normal, but seeing her crying fills me with an anger that is pointless, with nothing to kill or destroy for making her cry. She wraps her arms around my middle, hugging me gently, and murmurs into my shirt, “You’re going to be a good dad,” she says softly—too softly for the others to hear.
The praise warms me, and I must swallow down a thick feeling in the back of my throat. “I will not be passing this information to a child,” I say, confused about why she equates teaching Madison to burst an eardrum with being a father.
“No,” she agrees readily. “But you… you explain your point of view in this really complete and direct way. And you’re patient. You’re gentle as a teacher—well, as gentle as I’ve seen you be,” she adds when I lift a brow at her. “I don’t know if you know this about kids, but you kind of have to teach them everything. So being a good teacher… it’s a really good thing.”
I had not considered parenthood in this way. The fear that has knotted my chest ever since I saw that pregnancy test on the bathroom sink loosens slightly. Nicole believes I will be a good father. I did not know how comforting that would be. “I can do anything with you by my side,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm.
Her smile is warm and soft, much like her.
