“Which one of them,” Rebecca asked, plowing onward while glaring at Alistair, “is it that you think is this clumsy? Which cartel has this kind of power, but uses it with all the grace of an untrained child?”
“None,” Alistair admitted. “I don’t get it either, Becca, but it’s the only conclusion that makes any sense to me…”
Rebecca pulled another cigarette from the pack on the desk, and lit up, apparently oblivious to Alistair’s disapproval. She drew on it with obvious satisfaction, and then blew smoke at the ceiling.
“Maybe we’re coming at this from the wrong direction.” Rebecca said, turning to face them again, suddenly animated. “Why do you think it was that they wanted Mitsuru? What’s so special about her?”
Mitsuru’s throat tightened, as if she’d done something to be ashamed of. It took an effort to make certain her response didn’t sound defensive.
“What? What do you mean?”
Alistair looked legitimately confused.
“Well, look at the whole setup,” Rebecca said, leaning over the chart to point with her cigarette. “I see two clear points of intention — make sure the kid needs a rescue, and make sure you’re the one who does the rescuing. I heard about the catalyst thing.”
Mitsuru looked at the bandages on her hand speculatively.
“It was weird,” she said softly, “I’ve never felt anything like it. I don’t even know where I got the idea do to all those things, much less how I knew I could do them.”
“Remind me to try it sometime,” Rebecca said dryly. “Anyway, we know why the kid is important, or at least we’ve got an idea why he’d be important to someone. But why was it so important that you be the one to save him, Mitsuru?”
“Maybe his power as catalyst is limited,” Alistair speculated. “Maybe it had to be someone like Mitsuru…”
“What?” Rebecca crowed. “You mean their plot hinged on the presence of a dangerously unbalanced lunatic, with designs on the Audits department?”
Alistair grimaced at the sound, as the door slammed shut behind the fleeing Mitsuru.
“You’re too hard on her, you know,” he said grumpily.
“And you’re too easy on her — at worst, I’m hurting her feelings. What do you think you’re risking, codling Mitsuru like that?” Rebecca slapped her hand against the table angrily. “Look, I love the girl, I always have, and I died a little when they put her away, you know? But, they were right to do it. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”
Alistair nodded slowly, as if he were half-asleep.
“She’s dangerous, Alistair, dangerous to everyone around her. Whatever they did to her while she was gone, it didn’t help. I caught her a few minutes ago, trying to operate her Black Protocol. It was pretty gruesome. She can’t control it, she never could — you cannot put much faith in her good nature, Alistair.”
Rebecca leaned close to him, deadly serious. The mood was so rare on her that he had to look away.
“What would you have me do?”
“I support you in this rehabilitation project, Alistair, wholeheartedly. Mitsuru is my friend, whether she deserves the chances she’s getting or not. But, I have to know that you are going to make her do this. You let her fail once before, Alistair,” Rebecca said bluntly, hopping down from the desk. “I haven’t forgotten that.”
“Neither have I,” Alistair said, his face ashen.
“She was my best friend, Alistair. You guys were just fucking. It isn’t the same thing, so don’t act like you understand. You were her mentor, and none of this ever should’ve happened, because you should’ve put an end to it before it ever had a chance to become an issue.”
Alistair gave her only the barest of nods, his expression grim.
Rebecca opened his office door, and then hesitated there, silhouetted against the light streaming in from the window in the next room.
“I should have killed you then, but you were too bright to lose.” Rebecca’s voice was soft, but deadly serious. “You promised me that you would fix this, and I’m holding you to that, Alistair. You fuck this up for Mitsuru and this time whatever happens to her, I’m gonna make damn sure happens to you, too. You should remember that.”
She closed the door quietly behind her without looking back.
Nine
Alex tried to discreetly wipe the palms of his hands on the sides of his jeans. He was more than nervous — he felt like an animal on display at the zoo. He was sitting on an overstuffed leather couch on one side of the crowded office, and arrayed in a rough semi-circle facing him were Michael, an attractive woman wearing an Angel’s t-shirt named Rebecca, and two men he hadn’t met before, a pleasant-looking blond man named Alistair, and an older guy named Gaul, who had Mitsuru’s strange red eyes and an even icier demeanor. It was cold in the room, since Alistair and Gaul had insisted that Rebecca open a window if she was going to smoke. All of them seemed to have nothing better to do than stare at him while Rebecca ‘prepared’.
Whatever Rebecca’s preparations were, from where Alex sat, it looked quite a bit as if she’d gone to sleep, half-smiling, her head cocked to one side, as if she were about to say something.
“Alex, right?” Alistair said his name oddly, as if it were in doubt. “He doesn’t look like much.”
“Hey!” Alex objected, confused. “I’m right here, you know.”
“Alistair,” Rebecca said warningly, eyes still closed.
“Well, he doesn’t, anyone can see that,” Alistair said sullenly, folding his arms across his chest and ignoring Alex’s defiant glare.
“Don’t be a brat,” Rebecca scolded, then opened her eyes and smiled at Alex. “Just ignore him, hon, okay?”
Alex managed a nod. He was now feeling pretty resentful, on top of everything else. Who in the hell was this Alistair guy anyway? And why did he look so disappointed in him? He hadn’t even had the chance to do anything yet!
“We should start soon,” Gaul said. “I don’t want this to become public knowledge, and the longer all of us spend in the same room, the greater the likelihood that someone will notice.”
“Alex, stick with us for a minute longer,” Michael said, nodding at him. “Gaul, you know that these things can’t be rushed.”
“It’s cool,” Rebecca said, kicking her sandals off. “I’m ready anyway. Alex, I bet you don’t mind if we skip the introductions, right? We already know each other.”
“Yeah, but, why is that? Why do I feel like I know you?”
“Empathy, Alex,” Rebecca said, walking across the office to sit down next to him on the couch. “I’m an empath. My name is Rebecca.”
Alex flinched and shifted away from her a bit. The crushed leather cushions seemed equally uncomfortable no matter what part of the couch he sat on.
“Are you making me trust you right now, or something?”
Rebecca chuckled good-naturedly.
“I don’t think you would have flinched away from me if I was making you trust me, Alex,” she said, amused. “It’s actually the other way around. As an empath, I inadvertently make my own emotional state public knowledge. So you feel like you know me,” she said, shrugging, “because on an unconscious level, you already do. Your reptile brain already knows everything it needs to know about me. You trust me because I am trustworthy, Alex. You like me because I am extremely likable.”
Alistair snorted.
“Keep ignoring him,” Rebecca told Alex, patting him on the knee. “I’ve already told you what you need to know about me, Alex, down where it matters. You know that, right?”
Alex nodded slowly.
“I do, actually,” he said, with a touch of uncertainty.
Rebecca smiled at him approvingly, pulling her hair back into a quick ponytail and wrapping it in a rubber band. Alex couldn’t quite figure her out — her accent was definitely Southern Californian, and she looked a bit Latino, but there was something about the way she spoke, something a bit exotic about her appearance that he couldn’t place. She was right, though — he found her immediately likable, and utterly without guile in her frankness. Also, she was pretty, but she didn’t make him nervous at all, even when she sat close to him on the couch, like she was right now, even in front of the strangely intense audience that sat directly across the room, staring at them as if they expected to be entertained.