“I’ve been briefed. You’re not what people say you are.” Tom brandishes the gun. “Even if you were, I’ve evened the odds.”
Daniel rolls his eyes. “If you insist.”
“I’m not here to kill you,” Tom says, despite the finger on the trigger. “Stop—”
“I’m serious. I don’t have the patience for this.” In a single motion so swift it blurs, Daniel disarms Tom, then traps him in a joint lock with one arm as he holds out the gun with the other. “Ellie, make this useless.”
Tom struggles to break Daniel’s grip, but he’s just doing isometrics. There’s a lot of straining and grunting but no actual movement. Daniel’s arm might as well be a metal pipe wrapped around Tom’s body. Rather than giving any attention to the man failing to worm out of his grip, Daniel levels a gaze at Ellie that’s decidedly expectant.
A moment or a day goes by before Ellie can do anything. Daniel has always looked like a long-lost son of some hypothetical war god, but she’s never seen him fight like one before. Even with the size difference, she still beats him occasionally when they spar in the gym. Here, Ellie has no idea what happened. The gun seemed to slip from Tom’s hand as Daniel pulled at it. Ellie is sure what Daniel did was not nearly so simple. It would all be less galling if, say, Daniel were struggling to keep Tom under control, but the big lunk doesn’t even seem to be trying.
“How am I supposed to do that?” Ellie holds the gun gingerly by the grip. “I don’t know anything about guns.”
“Hey, you’re the expert on all things mechanical. Unload it, then make it a not-a-gun somehow.” Daniel shifts his attention to the man in his grip. “OK, what’s your message, Tom?”
“It’s not going to have the same menace like this.”
“Nevertheless.” Daniel presses his lips into a flat line.
Ellie sits on the sofa. With a little study, the structure of the gun becomes evident. She removes the magazine and sets it to one side. It clacks and swishes against the table despite her best efforts. Now that the ammunition is nowhere near the gun, she starts to disassemble it.
“Stop investigating side channels in the skunkworks. Or else.”
“Or else what.” Daniel sounds bored.
“That’s the bit that would have worked better if I were still pointing a pistol at you.”
“I gathered that.” Daniel tightens his hold now that he has both arms at his disposal. “Any chance you’ll tell us who sent you?”
“You saw them yesterday afternoon.” Tom tries to turn his head toward Daniel and fails. “They were at the funeral.”
“Can you be a little more specific? There was a crowd.”
Daniel tosses Tom over his shoulder and walks to a window. He lifts the blind, and light fills the room. Tom tries to shield his eyes, but Daniel bats his arm away. He opens the window.Engine hum drifts into the room, along with the heat and humidity.
“Wait.” Ellie stands up. “You’re going to throw him out the window?”
“Of course not. He’s bluffing.” Tom sounds incredibly confident for a man helpless over Daniel’s shoulder. “Ahdi wouldn’t do it. Daniel’s not going to do anything his boss wouldn’t.”
“Wait. What—”
Daniel’s “not now” glare chokes off the rest of Ellie’s words. Mentor is one thing. Boss is another.
“It’s pretty simple.” Daniel’s voice is the epitome of calm. “Tell us what’s going on and you get to leave in whatever way you want. Otherwise, it’s the window.”
For a split second, Tom is a blur. He snaps back into sharp focus, still trapped over Daniel’s shoulder. Given the contact, to leave Tom would have had to take Daniel with him. Maybe Tom tried. If Daniel were willing, it might have worked. As it is, maybe Ahdi could take an unwilling maintainer with him. Maybe.
“This is ridiculous.” Tom’s words fly out between gasps. “All you have to do is to tell Mary that the side channel she knows about was an accidental side effect of implementing quantum mechanics. I’m not even asking you to lie. Besides, that side channel has been closed. Stay out of our business and we’re good. What’s it to you?”
“You mean”—Ellie puts her hands on her hips—“why should we care that you made my mom suffer for your own personal benefit? Or that you tried to kill Ahdi for fixing bugs?”
“Puh-leeze.” Tom draws the word out. “That’s what warning Ahdi looks like.Actuallytrying to kill Ahdi is a far bigger production. As it is, we wouldn’t have bothered if he’d fixed only the one side channel Mary knew about. He also took out a couple we still use.”
“Look.” Ellie gestures at the gun. “I can put the gun back together if that’ll make you say something useful.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Ellie looks at him oddly. The question is too stupid for words, and it takes a moment before she realizes he genuinely expects an answer.
