“Busy,” said Tessa, sitting down at the kitchen table. “With schoolwork and stuff.”
“I’m your schoolwork,” snapped Daphne. “Now tell me what happened at your last meeting.”
Tessa took deep breath. “A lot lately. I may have met with some sort of religious leader—some priestess or something—that has ties to Dr. Cassidy and, by extension, the Citizens Party.”
If Daphne’s eyes had gotten any wider, they might have been in danger of popping out. “You did what?”
Tessa launched forward with a retelling of the story, edited of course. Many important parts remained, like how she’d convinced Dr. Cassidy she was having dreams about his religion and how he’d referred her on to Danique.
“Danique didn’t outright say anything too incriminating or admit to her full involvement, but the guy who was with her just before I got there called her Damaris. I did a search on those two names and found a reference to a Damaris Chu, who goes by the alias Danique, who’s been investigated by SCI a few times for religious suspicions but was never found guilty of anything. Of course, the exact details from the servitor’s office weren’t public record, so it’s hard to know what exactly they looked into her for, but I’m sure we can—”
“I’ll be the judge of all this,” said Daphne, who was practically salivating. “Where’s the mic? Let me hear this myself.”
Tessa shifted uncomfortably. “Well, that’s the problem. I went to upload it, and I got an error. There’s nothing recorded. It’s like the microphone wasn’t working that night.”
The idea was so ludicrous, it was clear Daphne couldn’t take it seriously enough to panic. “Of course it was working! We’d just tested it. It was on when you left me. Even if you turned it off—you didn’t, did you?—there’d be something there.”
Without another word, Tessa handed over the microphone and watched as Daphne repeated the attempt to pull its data. Her condescension turned to disbelief and then to outrage. “This is impossible! We tested it. I’ll take this back and see if one of the tech guys can do anything. Shit.” Daphne slouched back in the chair, arms crossed in anger. “It figures. We finally get something, and this happens! Tell me again what you heard. Everything.”
Tessa complied, again leaving out the same key parts—like how along with looking up Damaris Chu, she’d found a similar report about Demetrius Devereaux on the stream, one that linked him to unspecified religious investigations that had never been conclusive. Daphne couldn’t know about him. Tessa had realized the reporter was thorough enough to do a similar search and draw the conclusion that he too was tied into some underground religion—and that by Geraki’s words, Justin had some involvement that didn’t sound like normal servitor behavior. Tessa didn’t know if it was innocent. She knew Justin had met with Geraki a number of times over the last few months, but she’d always assumed it was SCI business. It might very well still be—or it might not. Geraki had made a comment about Justin “believing,” and although that was impossible for Tessa to imagine, she couldn’t take the chance of that insinuation falling into the hands of someone like Daphne. Tessa would protect Justin, as he had protected her so many times, by erasing the recording. If there’d been a way to just pull out the parts that incriminated him, Tessa would’ve done that, but some tech person at North Prime might have uncovered that there’d been an alteration.
“I’ll go on record with any of this,” Tessa told Daphne. “Whatever you need me to swear to—I mean, so long as it was something that happened.”
Daphne grimaced. “I’d rather you didn’t. I’d rather we had the recording, but if this doesn’t pan out, then a teenage testimony will have to do. Not nearly as credible.”
“Well, then,” said Tessa, feeling pleased to succeed in her ruse and to see that Daphne was actually pursuing facts instead of speculation, “I’ll keep going with everything else—the YCC and all that. Maybe it’ll give us leads. And it will look good for citizenship—if I decided to go after it.”
“Of course you will,” said Daphne dismissively. She stood up, microphone clutched in her hand. “I’ll take this to the guys downtown and see what we can salvage.” She glanced around, noting the mostly empty house. “I heard the news today. Call me when your guy gets back. Especially call me if he brings Lucian Darling around so I can finally get an interview. I was annoyed at first when he left the country, but the delay might have been for the best, in light of all this other stuff that’s been uncovered. This internship panned out . . . just not how I expected.”
“Delay . . .” Tessa frowned as she processed Daphne’s words. “Delay in getting an interview with Lucian? Were you expecting one?” Daphne had hinted as much before.
Daphne grinned. “Of course. What’s the point of having a well- connected intern if I can’t make use of it?”
Tessa followed her to the door, trying to piece meaning together with the timeline she knew. Something didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it yet. “You didn’t know I was connected— that Justin was connected—to Lucian until the Arcadian trip was announced.” There it was. Tessa put it together. “No, you did. Didn’t you? You knew all about me before you approached me at school. You knew all about my family and Justin being friends with Lucian.”
“So? What if I did? I wouldn’t be much of a reporter if I didn’t research the person I was approaching for a once in a lifetime internship, now would I?”
“But you said . . . what about all that stuff about wanting to see a girl like me rise above my background?” exclaimed Tessa.
“That’s true too,” said Daphne, who was clearly having trouble understanding why Tessa was so upset. “There are lots of pieces to this.”
“But Lucian’s the biggest one, isn’t he? Did you even want an intern? Or were you just looking for a connection to him?”
Daphne turned and leaned against the front door. “Look, I’ve been chasing this lead with Darling, Cassidy, and the whole idea of religious involvement in the CP for months without getting anywhere. Someone like me couldn’t get an interview with either of them—at least not through normal channels. So, I started looking into abnormal ones. Any connection—or one-off connection—that might get me an in to talk to the senator. I went with his friends, his friends’ friends, his friends’ family . . . and then through a stroke of luck, I found his friend’s ward needed a mentor in journalism. It was a long shot, but it was the best opportunity I’d had in a while. So I went with it.” Daphne sighed in frustration when she saw Tessa was still upset. “If it makes you feel better, you actually have been a million times more useful than I ever expected. When I found out Lucian was leaving, I thought my chances of talking to him were leaving too. But this work we’ve done . . . well, it’s been kind of amazing. You’ve got a real knack for this stuff, kid.”
“Not anymore,” said Tessa, surprised to feel herself on the verge of tears. “I’m done with all of it! I’m especially done with you. I’m not going to be a part of any more games.”
“Uncovering religious motivations in one of the country’s political party’s isn’t a game,” insisted Daphne. “And you backing out of that just because your feelings are hurt is childish. What does it matter if my intentions with you changed, when we’ve gotten so close to uncovering the truth?”
“Because the intentions and methods you use matter,” said Tessa calmly. “I got so caught up, I lost sight of that. And now you’re nowhere near uncovering the truth because you’ve got a dead microphone, and I’m not going to go on the record about what I saw.”