by Chloe Garner
Troy grunted at him, catching up.
“She is cute,” Jesse said.
“Shut up,” Troy answered. Jesse laughed, but kept his thoughts to himself the rest of the way to the car.
*********
Olivia’s transfer took four weeks to process.
They cataloged the tinglo as a children’s toy with very little additional explanation, and she worked her way through most of the rest of the Canni artifacts before she finally packed up her desk and departed.
Troy viewed her approaching transfer with a sickening mix of dread, fear, and hope, like starting up the first hill of a particularly violent roller coaster, knowing you’ve had too much cotton candy and funnel cake. They managed to avoid much contact, some days to the point that he felt like it was obvious that they were sneaking, but as far as he could tell, the lab continued to work like the machine he had built it to be. Celeste and Benji fought from cross corners of the room, yelling over everyone’s heads about where things had been cataloged and where they should have been cataloged, or whether certain work had been done, or whether it had been done in order. Slav’s reports came in late if at all.
Things came in.
Data went out.
Good data.
His confidence had been shaken for a few days by Jesse pulling back the curtain and revealing how laughable their process was toward teasing out certain details about artifacts, but they did good work, and, with perspective, he knew that. They were careful, they were scientific, and they were intelligent. He had the best people doing the best work, and he wasn’t going to start doubting them just because Jesse came in and threw a frisbee.
Strangely, it wasn’t until Olivia left that he realized that he was going to have to fill her position.
He’d been so preoccupied with not seeming like it was a big deal that he’d forgotten to treat it like the big deal it was.
Olivia was a critical part of his lab, an important outside thinker who often had the key insight to solving complex puzzles. She wasn’t going to be easy to replace, if he had everyone in the world to pick from, but then there were the security issues to deal with.
In order to get clearance, she had to be second generation immigrant or later, with a spotless police record - poor drivers need not apply - a master’s degree from one of the approved colleges, preferably out of the Academy, or with air force in her family tree. There were physical requirements, financial requirements, a psychological evaluation, and then the base officer corps had to like her. And these days, it felt like General Donovan and his crew would turn down anyone Troy put forward, just to remind him that he wore a collar and they held the leash.
Ostensibly, all of the requirements were to get the best, most independent people in the labs, people who made good decisions and were unlikely to fall for scams or be subject to blackmail. Things happened, of course. They were bound to, given the importance of the work that they were doing on the base, but at this point Troy had a spotless record for data security. The unfortunate incident a couple of years back between Sally and Corinth aside, Troy had a perfect personnel record for his entire career. But things happened, and the guys who ran the labs lived in fear of finding out that one of their staff had traded foreign terrestrial secrets for handbags full of cocaine and a fake passport. Because that happened, once.
He had a stack of resumes in his desk drawer; always did. The best of the best, or people whose names had been passed on as references. Sometimes there was even an overlap.
He looked out over the lab, wishing he had the political capital to poach someone from another lab, but knowing that that was a bad idea, right now. He was going to have to sign up for the lottery and train up his own guy from scratch.
Feeling a bit queasy at the idea of starting the hiring process, he pulled out the resumes and a blue pen. He wished he hadn’t remembered. It would have been a much nicer afternoon if he hadn’t remembered.
*********
There were some good candidates in the pile.
Better than he’d remembered, from when he was looking for Celeste, actually.
Duke had apparently put together an entire program training people to work in the portal program and the space stations. Someone had told him that it was happening, but it had been four years since he’d hired anyone from outside of the base, and he was astonished at the progress they’d made with it.
He looked up the curriculum online and smiled at some of the names on the faculty. Most of them were really good fits. He shook his head at the idea of Jerry trying to teach people, or Sanjay. He’d called an old classmate from the jumper program who was the dean pro tempore, until someone more suitable stepped forward, Alex said, but Troy couldn’t imagine Alex giving up the title that easily once he got used to it. The last to put himself forward for things, he couldn’t stand inferior ideas flourishing, and he’d ended up leading several clubs and organizations because everyone - including him - agreed he was the best one to do it.
“Tell me about what you’re doing,” Troy said.
“Everything,” Alex laughed. “Why are you looking? We’ve been pushing graduates toward you guys for five semesters, and I haven’t gotten any of the lab leaders interested.”
“That’s because we do hard science, not jumping jacks,” Troy teased. Alex howled.
“Been a long time since I’ve heard that one,” he said. “Are you hiring someone?”
“I’ve got an opening in my department,” Troy said, guarded. “I’ve got a bunch of nice resumes I’m going through, and your program popped up on a couple of them. Just want to see how competitive you guys are.”
“Well, I’m biased,” Alex started. Troy grinned at the phone, waiting. “But I think our one percent acceptance ratio is pretty convincing.”
“Are you guys second-chance jumper school?” Troy asked. Alex huffed.
“Not remotely. This isn’t a dictatorship. We let students pick their own paths through the curriculum, take the classes that are interesting to them.” There was a pause that Troy recognized, grinning again. He’d forgotten how much fun Alex was. “We just find that if they pick the wrong path, they fail out. So…”
Troy laughed.
“What’s your magna cum laude GPA?”
“Three point two,” Alex said.
“For your masters’ program?”
“We don’t graduate undergrads,” Alex said. Troy whistled. The average GPA on his desk was close enough to 4.0 that it didn’t make much difference.
“You know that’s part of why you can’t get in the door here,” he said to Alex. He could hear the other man nodding.
“We could dilute to look more competitive on paper, but we tell our students when they start, that after ten years, just having gotten through, here, is going to get them in the door anywhere. We are going to generate a reputation and then live up to it.”
“So this three-seven-five I’m looking at is pretty good, then,” Troy said, picking up the resume that had prompted the call. It wasn’t a spectacular GPA, and it was from an untried program, but he’d played rugby and ranked nationally on a debate team. It wasn’t a good chemical substitute for Olivia, and everyone knew that Troy was magnetically attracted to firebrands, which was what had led to the Sally-Corinth thing in the first place, but he kept pulling the resume back to the top of the stack.
“Conrad,” Alex said.
“You know him,” Troy said, putting the page down and picking up the pen. Alex laughed.
“Everyone knows Conrad. I didn’t know he was interested.”
“Tell me more,” Troy said.
“Tell you this,” Alex said. “To tell you about Conrad is to spoil him for you. But, even if you decide he isn’t the guy for you, you’ll never regret bringing him in for an interview. Promise you that. If he’s even still available.”
Troy looked at his watch.
“You’d make him the standard bearer of your whole program for the technical community?” Troy asked.
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“I would,” Alex told him.
“All right,” Troy said. “I’ll start the process.”
*********
He had Celeste in on the interview with him, and a plan for Benji and Sally to take Conrad on a base tour and then to lunch.
“What if I want to meet him?” Jesse had asked the day before at lunch.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Troy had answered without looking up. The idea surprised him, and he wasn’t sure whether he was trying to keep Jesse away from Conrad to keep him from souring the kid on working on the base, or because introducing a potential hire to the Earth’s only living foreign terrestrial was a security risk beyond what his track record running the lab could save him from, if it went bad. He’d be out of a career and potentially have legal issues to deal with after that, if Conrad talked to the wrong people about Jesse.
“I want to see what the world’s best and brightest look like,” Jesse said, “before they get here and turn into… whatever it is you’ve got working here.”
“Ha ha,” Troy answered. He heard Jesse laugh.
“Where did you find him?” Jesse had asked after a moment. “More jumper drop outs?”
“No, he’s a regular college kid,” Troy said. His personal taste made him avoid the kids who failed out of the jumper program, because they were all so indoctrinated by that point, and so much the same. Broken, most of them, if he let himself admit it.
“Fascinating,” Jesse said. Troy looked up at him and Jesse gave him a cocky eyebrow. “You hate them.”
“I do not,” Troy said.
“You do,” Jesse affirmed. “Because they aren’t good enough, and neither were you.”
“I’m wondering why I’ve put up with you as long as I have,” Troy said, recoiling on instinct. “You used to be worth it, because at least you were fun, but you aren’t even fun anymore.”
Jesse shrugged, returning to his lunch.
“It’s not that I’ve changed so much as that you have to put up with me more,” he said. “Palta are often more interesting in small doses.” He tapped his fork on his tray for a moment. “Then again, sometimes they’re much more interesting in large doses.”
Troy frowned at him, but Jesse didn’t go on. Troy shook his head at his lunch and returned to eating.
“I still want to meet him,” Jesse said a moment later. Troy had laughed, shaking his head.
“Not going to happen.”
The problem, Troy thought as he stood at the curb waiting for Celeste to arrive with Conrad, was that forbidding Jesse to do something had almost no bearing whatsoever on whether or not he would do it.
Conrad had stayed at a bed and breakfast off base where they routinely referred interviewees and the family of people who worked at the base. It was nice enough, but mostly designed to be cheap and easy to get to from the airport. Celeste had left fifteen minutes ago to pick him up for their 9am interview, and Troy had gone to make sure that the interview room was clean and not currently being used for interrogation.
Unfortunate, that. The rest of the conference rooms were considered to be security risks because they were in view of ‘sensitive’ space, and Troy’s request for one of the public-facing conference rooms in the officer’s building had been declined.
General Donovan’s people were behind that, he had little doubt. The memo had come back from the underassistant’s assistant that he would have to use a ‘standard’ interview room for his applicant.
He was beginning to get a victim complex from all of this nonsense.
Celeste drove by on her way to the parking lot, and she looked out her window at him, making a face that made him even more concerned. She was in great spirits, and highly amused about something. Troy tried to see Conrad through the window to the passenger’s side of her car, but she was moving too quickly and the windows had just a bit of a tint to them.
He waited.
A moment later, she pulled into a parking spot and a tall, bulky redheaded man got out of her car.
Celeste was a tiny woman, the kind who might have been a gymnast at some point in her life, particularly the kind who looked like, if she were hiding a knife on her person, she was more likely than not to use it before you knew why. Quick-witted and faster moving, she was a powerful woman. She set Conrad at an incredible contrast, mostly because he was just as fearsome as she was.
He was easily six three or six four, with shoulders that were just offset enough to let you know that he’d taken hits, big hits, and probably won. He walked with an athlete’s confident, swinging gait, wearing an interview suit like someone had had to beat him with a two-by-four to get him into it.
“Hello, sir,” the young man said, putting his hand out in greeting to Troy.
“I’m Captain Rutger,” Troy said, “but in the labs we tend to go by first name. You can call me Troy.”
“Yes, sir,” Conrad said, glancing at Celeste. Troy shot her a quick look. How were they confederates already? She smirked at him.
“Shall we?” she asked.
“Yeah, of course,” he said, putting an arm out behind him and badging them in the front door. He waited while the woman at the security desk went through the complex process of getting Conrad a temporary pass into the building. Troy glanced at Celeste again.
“You like him?” he asked. She grinned at the kid’s back.
“You’re going to love him,” she said.
He nodded.
“He could have done a better job shaving,” he said. She snorted.
“I think that’s just where the razor gave up.”
He pressed his lips together, hiding his mouth behind a finger in an effort not to be laughing as Conrad turned around.
“Where to now?” Conrad asked.
“This way,” Troy said, waving at the security woman.
“I can’t believe we’re actually going to interview him in the interrogation cells,” Celeste murmured.
“What’s that?” Conrad asked. Troy laughed politely.
“The first thing you’ll learn about being on base is that we take our security seriously.”
“Really seriously,” Celeste added. Troy shot her a look, and she wagged her eyebrows at him again.
“It’s worth it,” he said. “You get used to it, and it gets a lot easier after people start recognizing you.”
“Or your bars,” Celeste said. Troy was beginning to regret his selection for co-interviewer.
“We do a lot of important work here, and every bit of it would be useful to someone out there in the rest of the world. So we have to be careful with how we treat all of our data, and all of our knowledge, and all of the people we come in contact with.”
“Of course,” Conrad said. “What I don’t understand is why she didn’t match my ID against some kind of list or something at security. Is it just because I’m with you?”
“She didn’t?” Troy asked. Conrad shook his head, eyes playful.
“I could be anyone in the world, as far as any of you know. Mongolian reindeer herder, Polynesian dancing girl, Chinese businessman.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re of European descent,” Troy said, stopping, “but I will take your ID, just to say I did it.”
Conrad grinned and pulled out his wallet, handing over his driver’s license. Troy looked at it skeptically, squinting at it then back up at Conrad.
“Shaved about fifteen pounds when they asked your weight, didn’t you?”
“Put them on since the picture,” Conrad admitted, taking the license back. “Got married.”
“That’ll do it,” Troy said.
“You’re married?” Celeste asked.
“You’re not allowed to ask that,” Troy said. She shrugged.
“He volunteered.”
“Ms. Harris,” Troy said. “That doesn’t change anything.”
She gave him a mock-chastened look and they continued on.
“You’re the one who accused him of lying about his weight on his
driver’s license,” she said after a minute. Troy didn’t look as Conrad laughed.
“Guilty as charged,” Troy said, giving his badge to the security guard, an enlisted airman primarily trained to be able to hit things and keep his mouth shut.
“You’re in room three,” the man said, handing back the badge.
“They told me this morning that we were in room four,” Troy said.
“Says you’re in room three,” the guard said, unimpressed.
Troy sighed.
“Fine.”
The guard opened the door and let them into the outside room where the line of interrogation cells and observations rooms were. Troy tried not to look dour as he led the way to the cell at the end of the row.
“Cheerful,” Conrad observed.
“What’s more fun is that all of the doors are locked on the inside,” Celeste said. “I hate this place.”
Troy shrugged. He’d spent plenty of time here. More than he liked, certainly, but enough that the ambiance no longer bothered him that much.
He waved at the doorkeeper.
“We’ll knock when we’re done,” he said. “I’m expecting two other members of my team here around lunchtime.”
“Yes, sir,” the airman answered, and Troy nodded, satisfied, and let them into the interrogation room.
“Hey, guys,” Jesse chirped.
“Out,” Troy said.
“I’ll go in a minute,” Jesse said. “I just wanted to meet the new guy before you got him all beat in.”
“Hi, I’m Conrad Leal.”
They shook hands as Troy tried to get in the way.
“Get out,” he said again. Jesse grinned at him.
“You found a hill giant.”
Conrad laughed.
“Jesse,” Troy said. “I don’t want you here.”
“How did he get in, anyway?” Celeste asked.
“Clearly you haven’t worked with him enough,” Troy said dourly. “Jesse.”
The Palta shrugged. Conrad grinned at Jesse.
“How did you get in, if you aren’t supposed to be here?”
“Trade secret, my boy,” Jesse said. Troy rolled his eyes. Conrad looked older than Jesse.