Lehrer observed them wordlessly for a moment, and although Noam couldn’t see his face, he could imagine the look on it. The flopcell in his bag burned in his awareness like a magnesium flare.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Noam said at last. Better to seize control of the conversation early before Lehrer could start in on his interrogation. With the way Dara looked right now, Noam didn’t trust him to avoid implicating himself. “This is all my fault.”
“Yourfault?” Lehrer said. His voice was dangerously soft. “Explain.”
Noam managed a weak smile, trying to look self-deprecating. “I wanted to see what the government complex looked like inside. Atlantians usually aren’t allowed in without a cleaner’s uniform, you know.”
Okay, that last part wasn’t so self-deprecating.
Next to him, Dara stared at Noam like he’d never seen him before, his gaze boring a hole in the side of Noam’s neck.
Noam kept going. “I kind of talked Dara into coming with me. I was sick of Dara being... beingDara, so I told him if he didn’t sneak into the government building with me, it meant he was a coward.” The lie came easier now, pouring out of him like water from a faucet. Noam shrugged, dedicated to the cocky act now. “Didn’t use that exact word, though.”
Lehrer moved closer, away from the window. Noam could see his face now, Lehrer examining him as if he could peel apart the layers of Noam’s skin and peer into his core. “Is that true, Dara?” he said. He still watched Noam.
“Yes, sir.”
“Hmm.”
Noam had no idea if Lehrer believed them. He didn’t seem angry anymore. More... bemused. Pinned by his gaze, Noam felt not unlike a butterfly affixed on velvet.
“Very well. Dara, wait for me in the other room. We’ll discuss this later. Noam, stay here.”
Noam hadn’t even realized there was another room, but Dara rose to unsteady feet all the same, crossing over to one of the bookcases. He did something complicated with his hand, and magic rippled through the air. The bookcase swung inward like a door, exposing a short hall carpeted in blue and leading to another shut door. Dara looked back over his shoulder at Noam like he wanted to say something, eyes wide, but then he stepped inside and the bookcase shut behind him seamlessly.
It was just Noam and Lehrer now.
“Empty your satchel,” Lehrer said. Noam’s bag lifted itself off the floor and deposited itself in his lap.
Noam undid the buckles with shaking hands, his fingers fumbling the clasps twice before he got them open. He drew out the book he was reading, his black notebook, pens. His empty wallet. A pocket-size Ursascript reference book. And, at last, when the bag was completely empty and Noam didn’t have any excuses left to delay, he took out his holoreader and flopcells and set them on the coffee table with the rest.
Lehrer’s gaze slid over the objects assembled on the table. “Give me your holoreader and the flopcell. Don’t change anything. Don’t minimize any windows, don’t wipe the cell drive, nothing.”
Nausea curdled—once again—in the pit of Noam’s stomach. Before Noam could hand the holoreader over, it was tugged out of his grasp by Lehrer’s power, floating through the air to land neatly in Lehrer’s hands. Lehrer selected a flopcell and plugged it in, then examined the screen, frowning.
Just last week, Noam considered putting extra security on his computer. He’d thought about writing a program where, if he entered a certain password on start-up, anything in his encrypted drives would immediately be deleted. It would have been simple, elegant. It would have meant Noam could erase the text file without Lehrer being any the wiser. But he hadn’t done it, because he’d thought he was being paranoid, and that was stupid,stupid stupid, because any hacktivist worth shit knew there was no such thing as too paranoid.
“I assume you were responsible for the electricity cutting out,” Lehrer said.
He glanced at Noam, who swallowed and nodded once.
“That was a bad idea,” Lehrer said. “You caused building-wide panic. It would have been better to let the alarm keep going.”
No shit.But why was Lehrer going on about that, of all things, when he’d just read what he had? He held evidence of treason in his hands, and he was telling Noam how the crime could’ve been performedbetter?
Lehrer shut off the holoreader and passed it back to Noam, who gripped it so hard his hands cramped. He was never letting this computer out of his sight again, not without destroying the cell drive beyond recognition, and Lehrer and his order not to use technopathy could both go fuck themselves.
“I can’t cover for you like this again,” Lehrer said. “You’re going to have to do a better job hiding yourself in the future.”
“I—what?”
Lehrer picked up a cup of tea from an end table. The drink had been cold a moment before, but by the time he lifted it to his lips, it was steaming hot. Lehrer took a sip, then smiled, as if amused.
“I really don’t care that you broke into the government complex,” Lehrer went on, swirling the tea round in his cup. “But really, Noam, a cadet’s uniform? You couldn’t be bothered to change into your civvies?”
Noam flushed. The truth was, the only “civvies” he had were the ones he wore back from the hospital—and after three months, they’d fallen apart.
His mind was muddled with new information, blown expectations whirling like watercolors.
