The Administration Series (236 page)

"No, I think software and hardware research are equally important. We should keep both as they are."

She smiled wryly. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Nothing, not yet. Leave it until the end of the month. Or a little longer than that." As she started to protest, he said lightly, "You wouldn't want to spoil my birthday by wrecking SimTech, would you?"

She set her cup down firmly on the table. "Keir, I'm not trying to do anything of the kind." To his surprise, she sounded genuinely angry. "Do you think that I don't appreciate the importance of research and development? This is my corporation too. Don't you dare behave as though you're the only one who gives a damn about SimTech."

"I'm sorry, Asher. I know quite well that I'm not."

"Good. You said it, Keir — we have to keep our expectations realistic. We can't hide our heads in the sand and hope the economic turmoil from the revolt with simply vanish. But — " Her voice softened. "We can wait for a while still, I suppose. And I have no choice, if we three can't agree on what to cut. I'll cobble something together to tell the staff."

"Thanks."

She shook her head. "Two weeks, Keir. That's as long as I'm prepared to wait."

That evening, Toreth felt unexpectedly uncomfortable as he opened the flat door. It was the first time he'd stayed away all night in the last few weeks, which was weird in itself. Warrick wouldn't make a fuss about it, since he obviously hadn't expected Toreth to come back to the flat. However, it meant that Warrick knew for sure where he'd been. Not like before, when Toreth had his own flat and there was always the possibility that he'd been tucked up in bed with a warm glass of milk and a good porn mag. This, he realised suddenly, was what it would be like all the time at the new place.

'Where were you'?

'Stoned out of my mind on probably illegal drugs in a flat owned by a guy who had no clue he was fucking an I&I para'.

Maybe he would lie, and say he'd been at Sara's.

He didn't like that thought either. It wasn't that he minded lying — far from it. Lies were what kept life smooth and easy. However, the idea of lying because he felt obliged to, rather than because he wanted to, was something different.

Toreth found Warrick in the kitchen, cooking again, something that smelled unusually unappetising. Warrick didn't comment about anything from the previous night — not the argument over the bills, not Toreth's abrupt departure or the fact that he hadn't returned. Sticking very much to the rules, which was a relief.

"What are you making?" Toreth asked. "Smells awful."

Warrick looked round. "Deviled kidneys. Treating myself. I called in at the fresh produce market on the way home."

"The place stinks."

"The flat management system will take care of it." Warrick began methodically turning the sliced kidneys. "I'll tell it to turn up the filtering. I'm sure it will be gone by the time you get back."

"Back from where?"

"I'm sorry. I thought you were going out?"

Why would . . . oh, yes. Section birthday party, for someone he'd never liked that much anyway. Annoying that Warrick remembered events like that when he didn't. It felt too much like Warrick keeping an eye on him. The irritation crystallised the earlier unease into an urge to test the rules, and to hurt.

"Yeah, I am. In fact, I should change and go, or I'll be late."

"Well, have fun."

"I will. I did last night, at least."

Warrick's shoulders stiffened slightly, but he said nothing.

These days Toreth didn't do this, and he'd forgotten how much fun it could be. "I went somewhere I don't think you've been. Pickup place not far from I&I."

"Really," Warrick said.

"It's not a bad place, if you just want a quick fuck. Lots of potential."

"I'm sure there was." And then, the words forced out unwillingly, Warrick added, "Man or woman?"

"Man. Luckily he didn't live too far away, so it saved me the price of a hotel."

"How very fortunate. What was he — " Warrick shook his head and slid the contents of the pan onto a plate. "No. That would be a bad habit to get back into, wouldn't it?"

So determined to be reasonable, not to argue. "Didn't feel at all bad to me. Blowjobs never do."

"I meant myself, since obviously 'getting back' would be redundant in your case." Warrick turned suddenly and his voice sharpened. "You are nothing if not relentlessly predictable."

"Yeah, well, I need to unwind. Not all of us get to spend all day in the sim fucking teenage graduates who'll do anything for a job at SimTech."

"Even if that were anywhere near accurate, it's hardly the same as bar-crawling all night in a desperate attempt to track down the tiny remaining handful of New London citizens you haven't already fucked."

"So? I thought what I do away from here is my business."

Warrick paused, then said calmly, "Indeed it is. I'll consider the topic closed."

"You fucking started it."

"No, I did not." He pointed at Toreth with the stinking spatula and a drop of sauce spattered onto Toreth's shoe. "
You
brought it up, quite deliberately, for reasons we both thoroughly understand. But if you want an argument I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else for that as well. Have a good evening."

The sudden exposure of the subtext infuriated him. Treating him like a fucking child, and it only made the anger hotter to acknowledge that there was a certain amount of justice in that.

"Fine, I will have. And a nice fucking night, as well. I'll see you tomorrow. Maybe."

Without waiting for a reaction to the announcement, he went off to shower and change.

Dressing to go out didn't improve Toreth's mood. Sara had mentioned the birthday party as he left, and he'd managed to forget on the journey home. He had no real desire to go; if he wanted to do anything tonight, it was take himself back off to Gegi's or somewhere equivalent. Before the revolt he wouldn't have gone — wouldn't even have bothered with an excuse. Now the pressure to attend was politically unignorable. Everyone in the section seemed to feel a ghostly urge for solidarity from the still-empty desks and offices. Enforced socialising irritated Toreth as much as enforced anything else.

Two or three more minutes and he would've gone. He'd been delayed anyway — when Warrick answered the comm, Toreth was still in the process of looking for his coat, which he thought he'd thrown down somewhere in the living room.

"Yes?" Warrick said. Something about his stillness, a sudden change in attitude after the casual greeting, penetrated Toreth's bad temper and made him stop his search and watch.

There was a long pause, during which Warrick drew breath to speak half a dozen times. Finally Warrick said, "I can't . . . Jen. Jen, listen to me. Stop . . . is Dilly there with you now? Let . . . let . . . Jen, let me talk to Dilly. Please. Let — Dilly? Tell me what happened."

Half a conversation — after that Warrick was mostly listening, nodding, the blood draining from his face. Warrick pale and distracted was usually something that Toreth found very appealing indeed. Not this time. He looked sick, shocked. Family bad news, Toreth guessed.

When the call finished, Warrick's first words confirmed it. "It's Tar."

"Is he dead?"

"Not . . . not yet. Jen's at the hospital, with Dilly. They're giving him a ten percent chance. One of them said less."

"What the hell happened?"

"I don't know — no one seems to. Dilly hasn't been there long and Jen's not . . . Dilly said there was a collision. Tar was in a private car — or a taxi, they're not sure yet — that went out of control. He's been unconscious since they brought him in."

Sounded like a mess. "They'll have done a DNA check. Next of kin would be in his medical file."

"Valeria's all right," Warrick said, as if he'd asked. "She wasn't in the car with him."

"Yeah? Good."

Warrick sat down abruptly. "Did I tell you he was coming to stay at the flat?"

"Tarin? Here?"

"Yes. Or no — the new flat now. With Val. They were coming for the weekend. I arranged it, oh, weeks back. When you were . . . " The sentence trailed off.

"I thought you didn't like him?"

"Yes. So did I. For years." He sounded lost. "Strange, isn't it?"

Toreth kept silent, feeling uncomfortably and surprisingly out of his depth. Over the years he'd spoken to a lot of people who'd just had bad news: kidnaps, murders, violent assaults, rapes, financial ruin — more or less everything in which I&I might conceivably have an interest. On many occasions, he'd
been
the bad news, arresting suspects or explaining damage waivers to prisoners.

It was just that he'd never actually given a shit before. About cases, yes, but people never. Not that he cared if Tarin was dead, alive or somewhere in between. But he felt something — an odd echo of Warrick's obvious distress. Sharpened, perhaps, by the memory of the stupid argument in the kitchen.

Not so fucking impervious now, was he? Toreth enjoyed the thought for a moment, then he shrugged the feeling aside. He considered the range of options, settling for doing what Warrick would have done. "I'll make some tea."

Warrick looked up, focusing on him for the first time, and smiled slightly. "Thanks. But I don't have time — Dilly wants me to go there right away."

"You've got time for tea. I'll make it. You call a car and tell SimTech security where you're going. They'll throw a fit if you just disappear. Pack some things, too — you'll probably need to stay tonight." Slightly to his surprise, he found himself adding, "I'll come with you, if you like."

Toreth waited until Warrick nodded, then he went back into the kitchen. He could call Sara from there; at least this would make an acceptable excuse to skip the damn party.

Outside Tarin's room in the ICU, Toreth leaned against the spotlessly white wall, listening to the medic explaining the situation to Warrick. Toreth had heard it all before, dozens of times, and this woman seemed competent enough at it. Telling the distressed relative what had happened, what they had done for the victim — patient — so far and what more they could do, had to be the pain-in-the-arse part of the job.

Not that Warrick appeared particularly distressed, unless you knew what to look for. Probably she did.

The SimTech security guard stood a little way down the corridor. Toreth had recognised her at once when they met her by the car at Warrick's building. He knew the recognition was more than his general familiarity with SimTech staff, but it wasn't until she introduced herself as Alicia Dean that he remembered speaking to her during the old investigation at SimTech.

Right now she looked slightly uncomfortable but completely professional and alert. Not surprising, since there'd been an unexplained accident involving a corporate family member.

Single phrases from the medic caught his attention, creating a picture. More details than Dillian had given over the comm: the accident had happened at around four-fifteen. Tarin had been on the way to collect Valeria from school, and only a hundred metres away from the building his taxi had inexplicably been hit by a delivery tanker carrying something flammable. The fire had started at once, with suggestions of an explosion. Injuries from the impact. Burns over Tarin's whole body — his clothes burned off him.

At least, Toreth thought vaguely, they wouldn't have had to tear them off, and the flesh with them. But he was distracted by the knowledge of what would come next . . . soon. Any moment now.

"We have him in a flotation tank while — "

Hearing the dreaded words at last, Toreth gagged, hands clenching as he fought for breath, his senses hijacked by fear.

Warm, medicated, oxygenated fluid buoyed him up, keeping him hydrated. Flowing in, circulating around him, flowing out to be purified and eventually returned. Pumping through the mask into his scorched lungs. In his nose, in his mouth, in his throat — it didn't matter that it was keeping him alive because it felt like drowning, except that it went on and on.

Sickness swept over him, making him glad of the support of the wall. Toreth had never in his life experienced a flotation tank. He didn't need to. He'd seen them working, and that was enough to build the false memory from other terrors. Just one more thing in the world to avoid. If he'd known that it was
this
, he never would've come with Warrick. If he could've made it the length of the corridor he might have left, and damn what the medic or the security guard thought. However, it was taking all his strength to stay upright.

Eventually it registered that the medic was finishing her spiel. Toreth struggled for composure, succeeding to the extent that when Warrick turned towards him, he didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

"Dilly took Jen home before we arrived," Warrick said. "Once I've seen Tar I'm going on to Kate's . . . to the house. I'd be, ah, very pleased if you'd come, too."

"I said I would, didn't I?"

"Yes, of course you did."

He watched Warrick turn, start for the door to the room, reach for the handle —