He heard the key in the lock.
The entrance sequence: one key turn, not two — Alistair. Two would have been Tav's more habitual precaution.
Alistair appeared in the kitchen doorway with the look of someone who had been somewhere difficult and was now not there, its own variety of transition.
"You're awake," he said.
"Yes."
"You're always awake."
"Not always," Tav said. "Approximately seventy percent of the time."
Alistair studied him. Then crossed to the refrigerator and stood in front of it with the way someone who was hungry butcouldn't assemble the activation energy required for the actual preparation of food.
"Sit down," Tav said. "I'll make something."
Alistair turned. "You don't—"
"Sit down," Tav said.
Alistair sat on the barstool and waited.
Tav made eggs.
The kitchen at midnight was a different space from the kitchen at five in the morning — quieter, with the lower ambient hum of the city at its trough, the streetlamps outside casting a warm amber light that came through the window at this angle and didn't appear at other times.
He worked at the stove and was aware of Alistair behind him on the barstool — a person who was present and not managing the fact of being present. Who was sitting in a kitchen while someone else made food and was allowing themselves the rest of that.
"Where were you?" Tav said.
"That's not—"
"You came home at midnight with the way someone who has been in a difficult conversation,"
Tav said. He didn't look up from the stove. "That's observable and I've observed it. Where were you?"
A pause.
"Contact meeting," Alistair said. "Someone in Ablation's secondary network who I've been communicating with cautiously for several weeks." "It went — not as expected."
"They know more than you thought."
"They know different things than I thought." "About the Protocol. About what Cain has been doing with the data." He studied the kitchen table. "About what he plans to do when the attachment evaluation threshold is crossed."
Tav plated the eggs. Brought them to the island. Sat across from Alistair.
"Tell me," he said.
Alistair studied the food. Not with appetite — like someone who was being offered something necessary and was grateful for the offer even before they were ready to receive it.
"Cain believes the Protocol produces leverage," he said. "Two operatives who are deeply attached to each other are theoretically manipulable through that attachment. You can control one through the other." "But his secondary concern — the reason for the Final Directive — is that deeply attached operatives who choose each other over the organization are operationally dangerous in a way that single agents are not." He watched his plate. "We're two people who are functionally one unit. If we decide to act against Ablation, we're more effective than two separate people would be."
"He's correct about that," Tav said.
"Yes." A pause. "He's planning to move before the threshold is crossed formally. Before the monitoring data shows what he's already concluded from the trajectory." He met Tav's eyes. "We have less time than I thought."
"How much less?" "Weeks. Possibly days." The kitchen was dim.
