I stand by the window for a moment, staring out toward the gentle hill where the fence surrounding the sector is visible in the distance.
Is this how it is going to be now? A short burst of sexual energy between us and then silence?
Fuck. I have never let myself do sexual things like this before, and for some reason it feels wrong that the first person I let this close isn’t even someone I have a basic friendship with. I know I shouldn’t be doing this for the sake of my plan, but the feelingwon’tlet go. It gnaws at me, like something is missing, some unspoken need to engage, to… I don’t know, to beseenby him. Acknowledged.
He touched me, caressed me, made me come, and then… nothing?
I barely recognize myself when the question slips out.
"Are you writing an article?"
Eliano nods.
And still silence. He says nothing else.
Crap, it’s obvious I am dealing with thefalloutfrom that previous conversation now.
He asked me outright whether I wanted to run, and I did not give him a firm enough denial, which means he has now simply accepted that whatever this is between us is a matter of days, that putting energy in it is pointless.
That is exactly what I wanted, so why the hell am I reacting like this now, why does it feel like something inside me is being violently yanked apart?
Damn it. This time, I’m not letting it go.
"About what?" I push.
"Beta Activation facilities."
My curiosity spikes immediately. Now I have the perfect reason to sit down beside him—close—and fix my gaze on the screen.
Eliano raises one eyebrow, clearly surprised that I suddenly want to talk.
"Are you serious? I remember there was a rule saying that everything that happens here, all the procedures and stuff, is confidential. We’re not supposed to talk about this place with anyone from the outside."
He lets out a bitter laugh.
"Oh, trust me, I know my ways around ‘confidential’ things. For seven years, I ran a blog about my own family. I aired all their dirty laundry, basically fed it to the public, not directly, more like heavy hints mixed with real facts. The blog,The Truth Only I Know, actually got pretty popular."
"Wow. And your uncle never figured out it was you?"
"Well… he did. It went like this. I had this sparring partner, Archer. He’s a hacker, and a damn good one. He taught me a lot about covering my tracks online. I only got caught because I started writing investigative pieces for other blogs and news outlets, and got paid. I had protection, but Anzo found a way into the server of one of the outlets, and tracked me down this way."
"That is still a huge risk, Eliano. I am not completely clueless about internet security topics. If they have an internal network here, it will be much easier for them to trace you."
Eliano smiles with a hint of superiority and pulls a small rectangular object out of his pocket.
"What is that?"
"It’s a miniature phone burner I got from Storm and Damien."
"Wait a second. Mr. Miller said there’s no phone signal here, and we have to connect with the outside world through their WiFi."
"That’s not entirely true." Eliano opens the burner and shows me the screen.
There is a single bar of signal.
"This phone is really impressive. It’s probably picking up one of the relay stations on the coast, about a mile from here. Regular phones can’t reach it. I’m not connecting through their Wi-Fi at all, only through the phone’s hotspot using the external national network."
"That’s clever! So you can actually browse the internet like this?"
