The Administration Series (79 page)

Arriving back at the flat, they'd drifted automatically to the bedroom. But instead of a warm post-exercise buzz, Toreth felt irritable and restless and, worst of all, he couldn't stop thinking about Carnac. Not anything very specific, just the general awareness of his presence in the city; the fact that the man would be in I&I when he got in tomorrow morning; and that unless he'd had a personality transplant over the weekend, he'd be as much of a fucking nuisance as ever.

Toreth took his shirt off and stared moodily into the mirror. How long did it take to work up to permanent frown lines? Fuck that — he'd end up with grey hairs if he didn't get his office back to himself soon.

And right
now
, even when he wasn't present, Carnac was still annoying him. Worse, he was cutting into his time with Warrick.

"Toreth?"

He looked round to find Warrick lying on his stomach on the bed, with his feet resting against the headboard, watching him. His expression was more or less neutral, but judging by the way his clothes were scattered on the floor rather than folded on a chair, he was keen for company.

Toreth discovered, rather to his surprise, that he wasn't in the mood.

"I think I might go home."

"Oh. All right." Flattering disappointment, but not flattering enough to make him change his mind. "But before you go, are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"Why the fuck should anything be wrong?"

Warrick gave him one of his particularly patient looks, which were an inspiration to homicide even under normal circumstances. As an alternative to strangling him, Toreth decided to tell him about Carnac.

"Work."

If Warrick didn't want to hear about I&I, he shouldn't ask, but Toreth thought he'd give him a chance to object. When Warrick didn't say anything, Toreth sat down on the small sofa under the window and continued.

"We've been saddled with a socioanalyst who's checking us for subversive tendencies. I'd rather have Internal Audit for six months. It's all bollocks, anyway. The last time anyone got arrested for anti-Administration activities was years ago. And that was a bunch of admins down on level three — it was nothing to do with
us
."

He could hear a petulant edge creeping into his voice. Warrick was listening with sympathy, though, or at least what passed at a glance as a working imitation, and Toreth was enjoying the chance to vent his irritation too much to look more closely.

"Mind you, if he stays much longer
everyone
will be turning political. I'm surprised no one's thumped him yet. I swear Mike Belkin was getting close, but even he knows better than to fuck with a socioanalyst." Unlike Toreth himself, unfortunately. "But do you know what he's been asking people? Trained paras? 'Have you ever experienced a feeling of admiration for the willingness of political prisoners to suffer for their beliefs?' Jesus Christ. Socioanalysis must be staffed by morons. No one who gives a shit about that sort of thing makes it through the first week of training at I&I."

He noticed that Warrick's gaze had shifted away to a point about a metre left of his shoulder, so he decided to drop that line of complaint.

"The real pisser is that
I've
been stuck with the job of nannying the bastard until he finally writes his report and fucks off. 'Personal liaison', which means I have to hand most of my cases over to someone else and follow him around, doing sod all useful."

Or sod quite a lot, actually. Too much, which wasn't something he said very often. He was beginning to feel as if a layer of Carnac was sticking to his skin, contaminating him. Stupid idea. He dismissed it.

"I've had a wonderful week of it. The rest of the paras clam up if I get within three metres of them, because they're worried about what I'll pass on to him. And Sara's following him around, practically drooling on the floor, just because he's a world-class fucking flirt and he gave her the full blue-eyes-and-killer-smile treatment when he first showed up."

And not that I fell for it as well. Oh, no.

"What's his name?" Warrick asked, which was an unexpected question since Toreth hadn't even mentioned yet that they were fucking.

"Carnac. Actually, he told Sara he knew you."

"Well, well." Warrick was smiling, and Toreth had the feeling that he hadn't needed to be told the name. "Talks a lot, does he? At inopportune moments?"

"Yes, he does. You have met him, then?"

But now Warrick had started to laugh. "Yes, I've met him. Rather more than 'met', in fact."

Toreth stared. "He
fucked
you?"

Warrick raised his eyebrows. "Is it really
that
improbable that he might have been interested in me?"

"No. No, of course not. I meant — " He groped for words, and settled for Sara's. "It's a weird coincidence."

"Yes, I suppose it is. Anyway, it was years back, when I was working for the Administration. I'm surprised he even remembers me. He was studying the psychology of security systems. Very good work, as I recall. I haven't met many socioanalysts, but he was the best I've seen."

Oh, God. He wasn't sure if he could bear to hear Warrick singing Carnac's praises.

"If he's so good, why is he pissing his time away at I&I?"

"I have no idea. Of course, if he's still contracted to the Administration, then he'll have to do whatever projects they give him. I do know he had some moral objection to working for corporates."

"
Moral
objection?" Not an easy word to connect with the Carnac he knew and loathed. "What kind of moral objection?"

"You'll have to ask him. I never did."

"Was he as bloody annoying then as he is now?"

"Well . . . " Warrick considered for a moment. "Not to me. I admit it helps if you get to know him, though, and many people would probably say it wasn't worth the effort. I thought he was . . . an interesting person. But I can't imagine ever considering him as a close friend."

"I know him well enough to know that he's a waste of office space." That wasn't entirely true, but it was a relief to find one person who wasn't a committed member of the Carnac fan club. "And that he certainly didn't learn much from
you
about sucking cocks."

A moment's stillness, then Warrick grinned. "You say the sweetest things."

"Fuck off." He looked at Warrick closely, feeling mildly aggrieved that he was discussing the situation so calmly. This wasn't Toreth's usual one-night thing and he felt, somehow, that it ought to get more of a reaction. "Do you mind?"

"Mind what?"

"That he's . . . that I'm fucking him?"

Warrick shrugged, relaxed and blatantly unconcerned. Or was that 'ostentatiously unconcerned'? "Well now, that would entirely depend on whether you were enjoying it. And if so, how much."

"The actual fucking isn't bad. It's just the rest of the time that I want to kill him."

"Then no, I don't mind." Warrick cocked his head, half smiling. "Or would you prefer that I did? Should I declare a proprietorial interest? Perhaps get you labelled?" He drew a little rectangle in the air. "'This para-investigator belongs to . . . '"

He wasn't putting up with
that
. "Get up."

Warrick looked at him for a moment, unmoving, smile still in place. "So you
would
prefer it?"

Oh, yes. Provocation, and Warrick knew he'd have to pay for it.

"You'll know if I want you to do anything, because I'll
tell
you to do it. Right now I'm telling you to come here." He paused, Warrick lying still and watching him. "Come here," he repeated.

"No, I don't think so."

Toreth had quite forgotten that he'd been leaving and that he wasn't in the mood. Warrick wasn't keen on keeping much gear here in his own flat, but that didn't matter. Props were fun, but unnecessary, and he could always improvise. He got off the sofa and stood over the bed, looking down at Warrick.

"You don't bloody learn, do you? How complicated is it?"

Warrick made a move to get off the bed, quick, but nowhere near quick enough. Brief struggle, then Toreth was pinning him down easily as he twisted. Holding him tight, but not hurting him. Not yet. Soon, he'd want it, although he'd still complain about the bruises afterwards. Toreth could tune it so finely, so easily, these days, giving Warrick exactly what he needed. That was the satisfying part of this . . . regular thing.

He lowered his head and bit, hard, turning the uneven breaths into moans. Swimming pool-clean body, beginning to take on a tang of sweat. Pulling away a little, he watched the marks turning red against Warrick's pale skin.

"Now, are you going to keep still?"

Warrick didn't say anything — maybe couldn't — but he didn't stop struggling, which Toreth was delighted to interpret as a 'no'.

Reaching down onto the floor, he swept his hand round until he found Warrick's discarded trousers, and pulled the belt free. A loop round Warrick's wrists, and he buckled it tight.

Then he rolled away and sat up, arms round his knees, looking down at Warrick. He always enjoyed watching him like this, when he was so caught up in the game. Warrick twisted against the leather strap, his shoulders flexing, his chest heaving. Probably more exercise than he'd got at the gym.

Eyes closed, dark hair disarrayed and starting to curl with sweat. Pale skin, marked by Toreth's mouth. Panting through parted lips, mouth twisting as he writhed. Toreth had done this to him, and the idea held a kick like a drug. He wanted to fuck him now, and he wanted to wait, to watch, to make it last. And if it didn't last this time, it didn't matter, because they could do it again later. Tomorrow. Some time. Many times.

Wonderful regular thing.

Finally, Warrick opened his eyes. Dark, dark eyes, asking for it before his mouth did.

"Fuck me."

Carnac worked as Toreth watched him, appearing oblivious to the scrutiny. He was also quiet, which improved Toreth's mood considerably. In fact, for whatever reason, Carnac had been astonishingly tolerable so far this week. That was mildly annoying in itself, since it meant he'd wasted all that irritated apprehension over the weekend. Admittedly, it was only Tuesday afternoon, which gave the bastard more than half the week to return to aggravating form, but if Carnac could manage to keep it up until he finished his pointless investigation, Toreth might even not have to kill him.

That made him think of the conversation he'd had with Warrick.

"Carnac?"

He looked up, eyebrows lifting with surprise at the interruption. "Yes?"

"Are you Administration or corporate?"

Carnac leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "Is that a personal question?"

Toreth blinked. "Well, yeah, I suppose so. Forget I asked."

"No, no, I don't object to answering, I merely wished to clarify the context." He smiled, looking distinctly self-satisfied. "I'm neither. I freelance."

"So what the hell are you doing here?"

"Ah. I do not, alas, freelance all the time. I'm still paying off my training obligation to the Administration. At the moment I'm thirty-four point six percent freelance, which works out to one hundred and twenty-six point two nine days a year when I can do as I please, and two hundred and thirty-eight point seven one during which," he reached out and tapped a pile of papers, "I have to plough through tedious shit like this."

Toreth might have been offended, if he hadn't had exactly the same opinion of the enterprise. "You can't find a corporation to pay it off for you?"

"Easily. However, that would merely result in transforming an onerous debt to the Administration into a far more onerous debt to a corporation."

"No free payoffs available?"

Carnac shook his head. "The training cost of a fully qualified socioanalyst is approximately three orders of magnitude greater than that of a para-investigator. Corporations are understandably reluctant to offer any deal that does not guarantee a fair return on their investment. Most of the corporate definitions of 'a fair return' I've seen included the rest of my life, and the lives of my hypothetical unborn children, even unto the seventh generation. I don't find slavery to my tastes, so I prefer to buy my own freedom."

"Three orders of . . . ?" Toreth whistled. "And you've got it down to under seventy percent? What the fuck do you charge?"

"What the laws of market forces dictate — not as much as I would like, but as much as people can afford. Why are
you
still working for the Administration? I'm certain that you could find a corporation willing to offer more generous terms."

"I like my life the way it is. Anyway, like you said, would it make any difference? I don't fall for 'the grass is greener'."

Carnac nodded slowly. "No, of course not. May I ask a personal question?"

Something about his manner put Toreth's hackles up, but that was hardly unusual. "All right."

"I'm given to understand that you have a more long-term personal arrangement of some kind, outside I&I. I hope I won't be the cause of any difficulties?"