“Okay. I hear you, I can see how that would be a stumbling block for you. No maintenance roster from before the new upgrade. Hmm…”
And then she puts me to work. “Right. I can pull the current facilities schedule myself, I’ve got access to that through the audit. What I can’t get is the archive. That’ll be sitting in some Minecorp records vault behind a door I’m not cleared for and youare, Special Advisor.”
My lips twitch. “Don’t.”
“I’m going to say it every day for the rest of the contract.” She doesn’t look up. “So, you need to get the maintenance roster, going back as far as it exists. Every section, every date, every name. Second, I want the same thing for thecomms array, because the comms went down in both events and everybody keeps treating that as collateral damage instead of asking why the backup channel died in the same second as the primary.”
“The backup channel is on a separate feed.”
“Is it?” She turns around. “Is itactually? Or does the paperwork say it’s on a separate feed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Excellent.Third. Personnel. I know you’ve got every masked male who ever came through the transporter, and honestly, Scar, that file is awork of art, I want you to know that, it’s genuinely the most thorough intelligence workup I have ever seen and I’ve read some classified garbage in my time. What I want is everybody who hadlegitimateaccess to that grid, at any point, for any reason. Techs. Contractors. Facilities. Admin. I want every being who was there and had a badge.”
“I’ll pull the rosters.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good.”
Mara’s tablet chimes.
She glances at it and her whole face softens into something warm and exasperated at once. “It’s my brother, Andrew,” she chuckles. “He’s been adopted again.”
“Adopted?”
“By a crew. He does this everywhere we go. He’s the type who makes friends easily. He’s been on-site for only five diurnalsand a crew of miners has decided he’s theirs and they’re feeding him.”
She turns the tablet so I can see his message,Dinner w/ the level 900 crew, they’re insisting, you come? They want to meet you, I’ve been telling them stories.
“He’s telling them stories? Ugh. He’salwaystelling beings stories. He’s the reason we get invited to things.”
“Are you going to have dinner with them?” I ask, surprised to find myself annoyed at the thought of her spending an evening with the 900 crew. I’d rather she was spending her evening with me, and the Fever Brothers crew.
“Nah, I’d rather stay here and have a quiet evening.” She taps a reply and then tosses her tablet onto the table. “What do you do for dinner?”
“I eat at the compound. With my family.”
“That’s where you live?”
“Yes.”
“That’s nice.” She reaches up and twirls a strand of her shiny hair. “Um. I’m feeling hungry, actually. So. Do you want to cut this off, pick it up tomorrow, or…”
And she leaves theorsitting there, out in the open.
“I wouldn’t mind staying here,” I find myself responding. “Eating with you.”
She smiles, her blue eyes twinkling. “I’d like that too.”
Chapter Six
Scar
“Would you mind if I made us human food?”
