Page 5 of Flames and Blood

“It doesn’t have to.” He turns a page. “This is an asset on a schedule. It eats, it gives blood twice a week, it sits there. You’ll be bored inside a fortnight, and bored is exactly what we’re paying you for.”

“It hears you,” I say.

He glances up like a chair has spoken.

“No communications with the assets unless absolutely necessary.”

“Was that necessary?” I lean a shoulder on the bars. “Because from in here it sounded like a whole speech.”

Nothing moves in his face. He goes back to the sheet.

“How many are in this block?” I ask him.

“You’re not to be answered.”

“It isn’t a secret. It’s observation. I walked past all of it on the way in.” I tip my head at the hallway. “I make it one.”

“Don’t answer it,” he tells the kid.

“Give him a week,” I tell the kid. “He’ll be bored again, and you’ll have the desk to yourself.”

Neither of them pays any attention to me.

“Fine. Nice to meet you both.”

He hands the folder back, picks up his clipboard, and leaves the way he came in.

The kid goes back to his desk. He doesn’t sit down until the door swings shut. I wink at him, and his throat works.

He straightens the folder. Straightens it again.

“Is it true you can’t shift in there?” he says. He says it to the desk.

“You’ve got the file. What does the file say?”

“It says the security systems handle it.”

“Then the security systems handle it.”

He nods twice and doesn’t look happier.

“You could ask him,” I say. “The one with the clipboard. He knows everything, apparently.”

“He’d write me up.”

“He’d write you up for asking a question?”

“He’d write me up for talking to you.” His pen taps once. “I’m doing it right now.”

“You are.” I sit down on the cot so he can take a breath before he explodes. “Relax. I’ll deny it.”

He pinches his lips together and turns away.

He’s a rookie. He’s never been near one of my kind before. And the place is brand new. Nothing here has been tested against someone like me. These are good things.

What’s not good is how carefully I’m being handled. They didn’t put me in a compound. They built a room, cleared a block around it, and staffed a mountain for one prisoner.

Something’s changed.