"Why?" Alistair asked. He was watching her with the sharp precision of someone who had been reading people for years. "Why come here? Why tell us informally?"
Evelyn studied the window.
"Because," she said, with the particular flatness of someone choosing to say a true thing rather than a diplomatic one, "I've read every report from this placement. Every one." She looked back. "And what's in them is not a protocol failure." "It's two people who found each other." Her expression didn't change. "And I'd prefer, if possible, that both of them were still alive in a year's time."
Silence.
Alistair watched Tav.
Tav turned to Evelyn.
"If we take the voluntary separation," Tav said, "Ablation dissolves the placement. We're reassigned.
We're monitored. And if the monitoring data ever suggests the attachment hasn't attenuated—"
"Then the directive is reinstated," Evelyn said. "Yes."
"Which means we're not safe. We're on a timer."
"Yes."
"And if we refuse?"
"The elimination protocol activates tomorrow evening." She said it with the same absence of inflection she'd used for everything else. "You have until then."
She turned toward the door.
"Evelyn," Tav said.
She stopped.
"The first pair," he said. "What were their names?"
A long moment.
"That's above my clearance," she said.
"That's not an answer."
She didn't turn around.
"Lucien," she said quietly. "And Elias." A pause. "If that means anything to either of you."
Then she opened the door and was gone.
The apartment door clicked shut.
Alistair stood very still in the hallway.
Tav found his face.
"Alistair," he said.
"Give me a moment," Alistair said.
Tav waited.
After a moment, Alistair moved to the window. He stood there looking out at the city, his back to the apartment, his shoulders carrying a tension they usually didn't.
