Page 63 of Spark Transform

“Good. Staying hydrated usually helps me.” She tilted her head toward the door. “Get your kit, and we’ll see you soon.” Making a bigger fuss over him would have been insulting.

Rustom sketched a formal salute and strode away, pulling on his gloves.

She turned to Haseem, who’d been hovering to the side, watching the exchange. “Before you ask, Brenner is in, if he wants. He’s immune to telepaths, but he could have burned us a thousand times over if he was going to.”

Relief crossed his face as he nodded. “I was going to point that out if you didn’t. What about Arco?”

“Yes, but she might already have other plans.” In which case, they’d probably lose Brenner, too. “What about you?”

His expression sagged in distress. “I don’t know.”

Soleil stomped on the temptation to tell him how much she appreciated his friendship and compassion. His healer and medic skills would be valued wherever he went. He should be free to choose who he wanted to offer them to.

She grabbed her coat. “You don’t have to decide this minute. Josh is cleaning up here and going for supplies. You can ride with me on the airsled so you don’t have to walk back to the studio in this freakin’ weather.”

Soleil poured herself a cup of real coffee. The warmth would be welcome, and she needed the break from following her checklists and worrying about her students.

Haseem burst into the kitchen. “Brenner is gone! He’s not in any of the rooms upstairs. His clothes are gone, and his bag isn’t in your office.”

Soleil swore. The gods of chaos obviously had a malicious grudge against her. “I’ll check security. You go look for anything of his. Or anything weird.”

Haseem spun away and raced toward the stairs. “I’ll check the autodoc logs.”

She connected her gauntlet-style percomp to the building’s comp, then asked the custom AI Josh had crafted for her to play the morning’s recordings at triple time. She kicked herself for not getting around to putting a camera eye in the autodoc room. She kicked herself again for putting the cashflow chips from Arco in the bag.

The records showed nothing after everyone left the studio earlier that morning. Then, an hour ago, just as she’d been starting her speech to the students, Brenner walked into view of the office camera eye. He wore the clothes and boots Haseem had left near the autodoc for him.

The motion-triggered lights made him blink. He cast an irritated look at the wallcomp, then noticed his bag in the corner. When he bent to pick it up, he tilted sideways and only saved himself by sitting heavily in the nearby chair. With a ferociously determined expression, he leaned over to drag the bag into his lap and open it.

The packet of cashflow chips on top seemed to confuse him. His expression gradually turned bleak as he pawed through the bag’s contents and found a percomp, a rain cloak, and more clothes.

Movements slowed. His shoulders sagged, and his head dropped nearly to his chest. After a long minute of stillness, he jerked awake. Blinking again at the lights, then at the bag on his thighs, he shook his head like a wet dog. He fingered the packet of cashflow chips, a grim look settling on his face.

With clumsy movements, he pulled out the cloak and shoved the cashflows to the bottom of the bag. It took him two tries to stand, but once he was on his feet, he slung the bag across his chest, then clumsily pulled the rain cloak on over everything.

As he turned, he made eye contact with the camera eye above the office door. Irritation curled his lip right before the recording abruptly ended.

Soleil tracked his path by the string of dead camera eyes leading to the alley-side door. Considering he could have easily flatlined everything, she was grateful he’d left the rest of the security systems intact. No telling what he was thinking or where he was headed. And until the kids came back, she had no one who’d have an asteroid’s chance in a black hole of finding him.

She pinged Josh with the news, then dumped the coffee. Packing the studio’s training equipment in her flitter would warm her up.

In the meantime, the meddling gods of chaos better fucking well look after Brenner. They owed her.

Chapter 22

Planet: Mabingion • GDAT 3242.227

Jane Pennington-Smythe watched the compilation vid with private satisfaction. In the vid, a heavy military transport ground vehicle slid on the slushy road and slammed into the thick wall of a media-district building instead of stopping in front of it. No matter. Everything else was going as she’d envisioned.

The ground team herded the sixty-one shivering detainees outside and into the vehicle’s hold. The CPS recovery team combed the building for everything of interest, including AI nodes, data hypercubes, and physical tech and records. After everyone was out, the cleanup team imploded the building.

If Jane couldn’t be out in the field leading her operation, being in Room 37A in the CPS building was the next best thing. It was certainly warmer. Brighter, too, since the storm obscured even the noonday sunlight.

Her trusted staff of nine made good use of the room’s sophisticated monitoring stations, each tracking their assigned mission components. Members of her security team stood or leaned against the walls around the room. One of them just exited with the automated food-and-beverage cart and a stack of empty mealpack containers for recycling.

Jane ignored the claustrophobic feeling that the room’s stuffy air brought and concentrated on watching the rest of the raid compilations and reading the lists of detainees confirmed so far.

Not as many of the specific names she’d been hoping to see, but she’d anticipated that some of the vermin would scuttle away. Besides, the operation was only two hours old, with more than a hundred primary targets yet to go. Plenty of time for follow-up opportunities.