He’d seen her look rougher, he thought. But it had been a while.
“Mitzi, what’s eating you?”
Mitsuru looked up at him, red eyes wide and confused.
“Alistair, what happened to me back there?”
Alistair hesitated for a moment, trying to remember what he was and wasn’t allowed to say, then shrugged. He’d never cared much for keeping Gaul’s secrets.
“The kid’s a catalyst, Mitzi,” he said cheerfully, holding his drink up to the light, “a powerful one. Somehow, when you tried to probe him, I guess, he boosted your abilities.”
“Then it wasn’t me?”
Alistair smiled sympathetically.
“Not all of it, Mitzi.”
“Damn it to hell,” Mitsuru said, her drink sitting untouched in her right hand. “I thought… well, I’m not certain what I thought. But it seemed…”
She trailed off, staring at her hand, at the mostly closed wound in her palm.
“You’re an exceptional Operator, Mitzi. You were successful tonight, more successful than anyone had a right to ask or expect,” Alistair said reassuringly, meeting Mitsuru’s red-eyed stare with his own sincere expression. “Eventually, we’ll convince them to make you an Auditor, I promise. But you need to stop worrying about it so much. It isn’t helping anything. You can’t start jumping to conclusions — we aren’t going to change the situation in one night, at least not for the better.”
“I know,” she replied emotionlessly. She seemed to remember her drink then, and drained it in one go, setting the empty glass down on the corner of the desk.
“A silver Weir, huh?” Alistair mused, putting his arms behind his head and leaning back. “That’s pretty rare, you know. I haven’t seen one since that whole thing in Crimea, back in the eighties…”
“Alistair? Who was it who finished the operation?”
“Some Hegemony guy,” Alistair said, frowning with the effort of remembering. “North, I think.”
“Was anyone conducting an operation in the area that I didn’t know about?” Mitsuru’s tone was chilly, her expression blank.
Alistair nodded, unhappy. He’d already wondered the same thing, the moment the information had been relayed to Central. He knew what was bothering Mitsuru. There were only a few hundred Operators of North’s caliber altogether, and more than half of them were in Central at any given time.
The chances that he would be operating in the same California city on the same night as Mitsuru by coincidence were minimal.
“Central didn’t sanction any operation on the West Coast in the last twenty-four hours, other than yours. But you know how it is,” he said apologetically, “that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one, just that the cartel didn’t register the operation with Central. What was your briefing when you were sent out tonight, anyway?”
Mitsuru shrugged and brought her feet up onto the chair, hugging her knees to her chest.
“Recon and field analysis. Analytics knew about the pack, that they’d been hanging around the area recently, wanted to determine the extent of the problem.” Mitsuru shook her head, looking worried. “But they were wrong about the size of the pack, and they were wrong about why they were there. The Weir were supposed to be hunting.”
Alistair finished his whiskey, and then collected the glasses and made them disappear behind his desk.
“The Weir were waiting for that boy, Alistair,” she said, biting her thumbnail absently. “For him specifically. And they knew he’d come to that spot, too. They sat and waited for him, like they had an appointment.”
“Someone was running them,” he agreed. “They were probably running the kid somehow, too, if they were that confident that he’d show.”
“North’s cartel, then? Another Hegemony cartel? Do they even have those kinds of capabilities?”
“At this point, I’m not ruling out any possibility, Mitzi. But using a pack of Weir for a removal,” Alistair said, frowning, “that’s something that I’d expect the Witches to do. Anyway, there are quieter, more deniable ways to take out one kid, if that’s what the cartel wanted.”
“Is it actually possible this is a coincidence?”
Alistair shook his head.
“I doubt it.” Alistair got a headache, just thinking about it. “The analysts say it’s highly unlikely, and I sure don’t believe it.”
“Then what?”
“It wasn’t a hit, Mitzi,” Alistair said with a shrug.
“What?”
“The Weir were probably hired to hit the kid, don’t get me wrong,” Alistair said with a tired smile. “They aren’t clever enough to fake something like that. But, I don’t think that is what their client intended to happen at all. I think that they arranged the whole scenario to try and jar the boy’s talents into activation, probably in the most traumatic way possible. And if you hadn’t intervened…”
“Then they would have, whoever they are,” Mitsuru said, dully completing his sentence. “Either they anticipated my involvement, or they had someone else waiting in the wings, and hung back when they saw me.”
“Could be.” Alistair nodded thoughtfully. “But, North being there doesn’t necessarily mean he had any direct involvement in the attack. For all we know, the whole thing was a Black Sun operation, and North was keeping an eye on it, and took the opportunity to bail Central out when it arose. We don’t have enough data to say anything for certain about that yet. Maybe Gaul will get more out of him when he conducts the Inquiry.”
“Then, what now?”
Alistair’s grin was more genuine this time.
“Well, I’m going to need someone to keep an eye on the kid, for the time being. His name’s Alexander, by the way.”
Mitsuru’s face was a mixture of slow realization and dawning horror.
“Don’t worry,” he said comfortingly, reaching forward to pat her shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll be a great instructor.”
Seven
If there was one thing life had repeatedly taught Alex, it was the value of avoiding unnecessary confrontation. He didn’t like uniforms. But he started putting it on, anyway, because he didn’t see any other good options.
There were certain things in life that were going to happen — institutional life had taught him that. You would, for example, wear your uniform as directed. You would be in your cell by six. Lights would go out at nine. You would be up, dressed and bed made by eight the next morning. All of these things were going to happen, whether you felt like doing them or not. The only option that Alex had been offered was whether or not he would prefer to have his teeth kicked down his throat in the process.
And you’d have to be stupid to make a choice like that. They said this was a school, and that was fine. But, in Alex’s experience, school wasn’t so different from any other institution — with uniforms, rules, privileges, dormitories and grounds; there would be principals imparted and edges smoothed out. He’d been the target of such manufacture before, and he knew that he’d gain nothing by getting caught up in the gears.
Add to that, Alex thought, pulling on the button-up shirt awkwardly over the sheath of plastic that wrapped his injured forearm, the fact that Michael was one scary dude, smile or no. Alex didn’t really know that many black guys personally, but he didn’t think that made much of a difference, in this case. He’d never met anyone who looked like him, with the tattoos and the dreadlocks and then the suit, but apparently he worked as some kind of teacher.
Alex fumbled the top button on his collar into place, and then wondered if it was actually supposed to be that tight. Maybe guys usually left the top one undone? He couldn’t remember.
Michael seemed pretty friendly, and that was interesting on its own. Alex hadn’t met many people who didn’t despise him, and he wasn’t overly eager to make him angry. If he was going to be a part of this school, or whatever it was, then Michael seemed to be in a position to make it all go easier for Alex. No, he thought, wincing as he pulled on the tight slacks. There was no point in arguing with Michael. Alex was sure that he would lose, and he didn’t pick fights that he knew he would lose.