The Administration Series (58 page)
"Then just be careful with him. Please?"
He'd heard that before. From Sara, who didn't want him to hurt her friend. And Marian — murdered Marian — who had worried about quite the opposite. Now Dilly made it two to one in favour of Marian's view.
Warrick looked down at the scrambled eggs congealing slowly on the plate in front of him. "Oddly enough, people keep saying that to me," he said, trying to keep his voice light.
"Then, well . . . maybe you should listen to them."
"I am careful. Always." Because I know he's dangerous, which is at least part of why I want him. He thought of the chill he'd felt when Dilly told him Toreth was charming. If his and Dillian's positions had been reversed, what would he say to her? 'Be careful with him' would be the mildest possibility.
Fortunately, Dillian couldn't read minds. "Then everything will be fine." She reached across the table, touched the back of his hand. "And if you ever need me . . ."
He looked up again, smiled. "You'll be on Europa."
"I'll come back, for you."
"Thanks."
"Don't worry about it. I love you, that's all."
She finished her eggs, then looked at her watch. "Oops. I have to go."
"Good luck with the meeting."
She stopped in the doorway and looked back, her eyes twinkling. "Before I go, do you want me to get you a cushion?"
Before he could find anything to throw, she had gone.
Sara was late for work. She'd woken up early, but then spent an hour composing a transfer request. It had been successively revised down in tone until the screen no longer blistered, but it was still somewhat forthright. Once she got in she'd have another go at it until it was suitably bland, and then send it to Tillotson. Considering all the times she'd covered for him in the past, she'd better get a damn good transfer reference from Toreth.
She was so busy enjoying her foul mood that she didn't see the flowers until she was halfway across the office. The rest of the senior para admins in the section were watching her expectantly. She said a general hello and went over to her desk.
It was a huge bouquet and every single blossom was real. The calculation of cost was fast and automatic and gave an impressive result.
It took her a while to find the message amongst the profusion of flowers. When she did it read,
Sorry
.
Hands landed on her waist. She looked down and saw the vivid scratch marks on his skin.
"For calling you a lying cunt, that is," Toreth whispered. "Really, very sorry."
The rest of the room watched the scene with undisguised fascination. Sara looked up at him over her shoulder. She knew he wasn't sorry, of course, and that this was just a belated realisation that he'd gone too far. That didn't matter, though.
"You're forgiven," she said.
He grinned and let her go. "Excellent."
She turned and examined him more carefully. God, he looked pleased with himself. There could be only one reason why.
"And I'm sorry," she said, "about the tickets."
The grin broadened. "No need. In fact, call the flowers a late thank you for that, as well as an apology."
"Oh?"
"Yes, 'oh'."
Sara decided that, thank God, she wouldn't be needing the transfer letter. As Toreth turned to go back into his office she asked, "Do I get to hear all about it at coffee?"
He paused. "No. No, I don't think so." Another pause, another smile. "Well . . . maybe," he said, and the door closed behind him.
Sara had taken a long lunch, even by her standards. She'd been gone from her desk when Toreth came back upstairs from the morning's interrogation and he didn't see her until well over an hour later, when she breezed into his office, grinning from ear to ear.
"Where've you been?" he asked.
"The AERC." She sat on his desk, kicking her heels against it. "You remember you asked Warrick if he'd let me have a go in the sim? He called this morning and said someone had cancelled something and I could do it but it had to be today. I would've told you, but you were busy. I asked Kel to cover for me."
"What did you think?" Toreth asked, even though her expression told him that she'd been as blown away by the experience as he had been the first time.
"Fucking
incredible
! I couldn't believe it. He took me through all these different settings, rooms, whatever they call them. It was so
real
. I know you told me about it, but . . . unbelievable. And Warrick . . . the stuff he can do! So weird. There was this beach —"
Suddenly Toreth couldn't hear her any more. 'The stuff he can do.' He knew all about that. Had Warrick done any of it with Sara?
Sara was still chattering away happily. "— breathing underwater. It was so
weird
. Warrick said I was pretty good at it. Lots of people choke the first time, or they just can't do it at all. God, I hope I can get another go. I think I might volunteer for trials. There's a list a mile long but maybe you could put a word in, hm? Hm? Toreth?"
For some reason, despite their many past conversations about fucking, he couldn't think of a good way to ask her. "Did you do anything else?"
"Yeah, loads of stuff. He did this thing —" she clapped her hands, "— for drinks, yeah? You've seen him do it, I'm sure. Outrageous show-off, but it was pretty impressive, I admit. They tasted great. There's an alcohol feed, but he wouldn't turn it on. He said he wasn't sending me back here pissed after lunch because you'd think he'd been trying it on. He —" She stopped dead, maybe seeing something in his face. "You don't think that, do you?" she asked after a moment.
Toreth shrugged, aiming for casual and composed. "I did wonder."
"He was only joking. Why would you think I'd do anything with him?" She shook her head. "Why would you even think we'd want to?"
"You've been flirting with him," Toreth said tightly.
Her eyes widened incredulously. "I've been what? When? I kissed him a couple of times to say hello. That's not flirting. What you did to his
sister
right in front of him, that was flirting. Anyway," she continued in a harder voice, "I'm not the one who goes for other people's partners."
He heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Aren't you ever going to give up on that?"
"Of course I'm not!" Her voice rose in theatrical outrage. "You screwed my boyfriend!"
"Once. Six years ago." He felt far more comfortable with this old, familiar argument. "And you'd split up with him before I laid a finger on him. Or in him."
"That was a tactical breakup and you bloody well knew it."
Toreth shrugged, affecting disinterest and not having to try so hard now that they were away from the topic of the sim. "I don't know what you were so upset about. He was a lousy fuck, anyway."
Sara glared for a moment, and then sniggered. "Yeah, you're right. He was. And, Christ, talk about hard to get rid of. Served you right, didn't it?" She cocked her head thoughtfully. "I don't know why you're making such a fuss. About Warrick. I mean, he does other people in the sim."
"He doesn't," Toreth said, without thinking. Without really letting himself hear what she'd said.
"Of course he does. He was explaining to me they'd had a problem last week with one of the . . .
oh
."
"He —" With an effort Toreth pulled himself together. "It doesn't matter what he does."
Sara peered at him closely. "You're jealous!" she said delightedly. "You're getting all possessive."
His stomach dropped a couple of floors through the building, leaving him stranded in the suddenly stifling office. "Don't be stupid."
"Then you should sue your face for libel."
"Slander." Automatic correction while he thought about what she'd said.
"Well, it's written all over it." She grinned. "I feel like I should mark it on the calendar. You'll be picking out curtains with him next."
Oh, God, she was right. "Just get out of my office and do some fucking work for a change."
She swung herself off the desk. "Yes, Para,
sir
."
He could hear her laughing as she closed the door.
Oh, God, she
was
right.
Toreth sat at his desk, feeling one part angry — at Warrick or Sara he wasn't quite sure — and two parts horrified. 'Jealous'. He hated the word — one of a whole set of words that only ever applied to other people, never to him.
The strange part about it, the part he couldn't understand at all, was that he'd known about the sim already, before Sara had said anything. He'd known that it was part of the development. But he'd somehow managed to push the fact out his mind and he didn't even remember when he had done it. Now it was back and screaming for attention. Warrick in the sim with someone else, someone from SimTech, someone Toreth had met . . .
He knew what he ought to do, which was go see Warrick tonight and . . . say something. Something he couldn't even begin to think through. And he knew what he was going to do, which was go out, get drunk, and find someone to take his mind off the whole thing.
Four days later, as he came out of the I&I main entrance, he saw Warrick sitting on the grass near the imposing statue of Blindfold Justice. He had a handful of gravel and was throwing pieces up at the statue, trying to get them into one side of the level scales. A security guard was watching him, but Warrick would have had to scan his ID to enter the Int-Sec complex, and he'd be marked as a harmless corporate director, someone not to be harassed over a little pebble-throwing.
Toreth thought about ignoring him, but, while he hesitated, Warrick turned and caught sight of him. As Toreth reluctantly walked over, he got to his feet and brushed off his hands.
"The scales of justice don't seem to be very finely balanced," Warrick said.
"They got sick of people doing what you were doing. Now they're fixed."
"Really? How wonderfully symbolic."
Toreth shrugged, and started to head in the general direction of home. Warrick fell into step beside him, not apparently feeling the need for further conversation.
After two hundred metres of silence, Toreth said, "Did Sara call you?"
"No, I managed to spot this one all by myself." He smiled, a brief flicker. "You could say that the predictive power of my model is improving as the dataset grows. I did call her, to enquire after your whereabouts, but she was uncharacteristically reticent. So, what have I done?"
"Why the fuck should you have done anything?"
"Well, one —" Warrick held up a finger. "You haven't called for four days. Two, you won't accept my calls at work, and three, you aren't at home at night." He let his hand drop. "Sara wasn't very forthcoming about the details of where you've been instead, but I think I have a sound general idea. Nor would she tell me what had provoked it, which of course just told me that it was me. She can say a lot while not saying much, when she puts her mind to it. Well?"
No sound except the breeze in the leaves.
"No?" Warrick asked. "Very well, I shall guess. Leaving the possibility of coincidences aside, I assume it must be connected to Sara's visit to SimTech?"
Why couldn't he be fucking someone a bit less intelligent? "It's nothing."
"Oh, no. It's 'nothing' if things return to normal. Will they? I shall take that as a no."
Warrick stopped walking and turned to face him. "I'm going to ask once more, and then I'm going home. After that, you can call me, or come round, or not, as you like. And if you don't, I won't be back."
Not a threat, but a simple statement of intent.
"Now, Toreth, for the last time, what's the matter?"
Toreth had faked this kind of conversation before, or at least similar ones, and he'd heard it dozens of times. How much harder could it be when there was some truth to it?
"Sara mentioned that you'd been fucking other people in the sim," he said in a rush, hoping it wouldn't sound so petty if he said it quickly.
"Did she?" Warrick waited for a moment, and then said, "That's it?"
For a second, Toreth wanted to hit him. He laced his fingers together behind his back. "Yes."
"Oh." Warrick seemed taken aback by that. "I could say that depends on what you call fucking, but assuming the broadest definition, yes, I do sometimes have sex with people in the sim. Something that you already knew."
"I thought . . . " Toreth wasn't quite sure what he'd thought. That he wasn't doing it any more. That Warrick was
his
. Now he could hear Sara laughing again. He took a deep breath. A flat demand would do no good with Warrick. "I'd rather you didn't."
"You would?" Warrick turned away and started walking again. "Well, that's a pity. Firstly, it's my job. I don't do it often — very occasionally indeed nowadays, as I unfortunately find less time to spend on proper work. But sometimes I have to. If there are problems, I have the most experience in certain areas. We have tight schedules, and limited sim time."
