“We should probably talk to them both, then,” suggested Antonio. He didn’t relish the thought of heading back out into the dust storm, but at least they were getting closer to the truth. “Since there’s no body, she’s probably still alive. And I can’t imagine he wouldn’t report her missing, no matter how much of an asshole he might be. After all, he’s got his image to consider. If she were dead, he’d be covering his tracks.”
Chaakwa was glad he was on this case with her. He had the right mindset for understanding how people behaved around killing. “Agreed,” she sighed, shaking her head at the state of the world. “We just need to find them. Shall we start at their place of work?”
Antonino was already putting his jacket back on. “Let’s do it.”
Chaakwa looked back at the screen, the frame frozen on Paige being dragged into the Dewitt residence. Too bad the dirtbag in this equation was already dead.
“Okay, let’s go find them,” she said, getting up and grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair.
On board the XC-0094B
Two hours into the flight, the gang had settled in the cargo area. Only Molly was still up front in the passenger area talking with Oz and working on her holo.
Joel called over to her to join them for the second time since they had gathered themselves there.
I suppose I could use a mocha, she thought, getting up and stretching her back.
She wandered over, only to have Brock try to hand her a beer and kick out a crate for her to sit on. Molly waved “no thanks” to the beer and instead fired up the mocha machine before sitting down on the crate he offered.
“The guys were just wondering where we were heading,” Joel broached.
Molly frowned to her friend. “Oh, so it’s not, ‘come and have a drink with us’? It’s all, ‘come and let us pump Molly for information’!”
Paige giggled, and Molly caught her eye and smiled.
Garet interjected. “Yeah, yeah. We aren’t interested in your sparkling conversation at all. We just wanna know what our next digs are going to be like!”
They all laughed.
The internal comm clicked on. “Please be advised that if passengers are having too much fun, they may find themselves without a pilot flying this bird!”
They erupted into hilarity again. It had been a bumpy ride, but she was glad to be here. Joel passed her the mocha that had just finished brewing.
When the laughing had subsided, she took the cue to fill them in on the details of where they were going and why they’d selected the next place the way they had.
Every now and again someone would ask a question or make a joke, but it seemed they were all looking forward to building a new life.
“How long do you think we’re going to be there?” asked Garet finally.
Molly looked at Joel.
Joel took a deep breath, then released it slowly. Thinking.
“Not sure. It really depends on what happens in Spire while we’re away. Right now everything is too hot for you and Paige to be there, Garet. We don’t know if Dewitt had issued instructions to take you out regardless of whether or not he was alive. We don’t know if the Syndicate wants to keep you quiet. I mean, releasing those files looks bad, and they also know you have dirt on them.”
“Which I have no intention of using.”
“Yeah, but that isn’t the point,” added in Molly.
Garet thought a moment. “Can I eventually use it as leverage to stop them coming after me, do you think?”
Joel shrugged. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell. We don’t know enough about the people behind the Syndicate: their temperaments, their aversion to risk, their reasoning. It may just suit them better to tie up the loose end completely.”
“So that means bye-bye Garet.”
“And Paige,” Paige added grimly.
“Yeah, so best to stay put until we know more,” concluded Molly, getting up again.
“Who wants to play cards?” Brock piped up, opening his holo to find a game.
The chatter erupted again, the seriousness of the moment forgotten.
Molly headed back to her seat, and Joel, seeing a moment to talk, got up and followed her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“How you doing?” Joel asked, taking the seat across the aisle from where she settled back down.
“Fine,” said Molly, nonplussed by the question, and returned it. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Crazy few days, but I’m okay. But you! You’ve been kidnapped, nearly killed, and then you’ve had all this planning and responsibility. So, really, I need to ask you again…how are you doing?”
Molly looked down for a moment, pretending to study the floor showing through her array of gear and clothing scattered around the two seats she’d claimed as mission control.
She looked back up. “I’m okay. Feeling tired and crappy about a bunch of stuff. But okay.”
“Tell me about the crappy,” Joel coaxed.
She started chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Well, the Oz thing, mostly. I mean, I stand by my decision that pulling money from the markets was the best thing for the team and the cause, but I see the points you made about stealing data and then changing his personality to suit me. It’s like those guys who just rig the system for their own ends, even though our ends are honorable.”
Joel nodded, listening attentively. “Exactly. But as a leader, you need to hold yourself to a higher standard. Whatever system you’re talking about fucking with, whether people’s minds or gaming the political system through back door dealings, it’s not the kind of leader you want to be.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s a bit like getting a guy into bed by using synthesized pheromones,” she added, half to herself.
Joel had been sipping a bottle of water and nearly choked. Water dribbled down his chin as he tried not to laugh, but in suppressing the impulse, he ended up spraying some into the air and up his nose.
Molly scrambled for a tissue to help him out, laughing at the commotion.
“Y’all all right up there?” yelled Brock through the open doors from the other end of the ship. “I ain’t missing a good time, am I?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Molly yelled back.
Crash came over the comm, “You have already been warned!”
Laughter echoed through every chamber in the ship.
Joel settled and looked momentarily suspicious.
“Molly?”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever used pheromones on me?”
Molly’s face lit up in shock and then humor.
She smiled, her face a little red. “No! No, on my ancestors’ ascensions, I have not!”
She paused processing through why he might have asked that. “You mean…you think…” she broke up in giggles. “No, Joel, everything you might be feeling is 100% au naturel! I have not been fucking with pheromones.”
Joel looked sheepish, and then got very serious. “Well, just you see that you don’t. I’m onto you, Molly Bates.” The glint in his eye told her that while he meant what he said, he was mostly toying with her.
Mostly.
He tried to drink his water again, this time with more success. “You know I’ve been a team leader for some of the most highly trained squads on some of the most intensive missions in the system, and I’ve learned that you have to be part therapist, part leader, and part den mother to your people. It takes a ton of work. It’s exhausting. And constant. But when you do it: when you build that team of people who would take a bullet for you, or anyone else on their team, that’s when you make magic.”
Molly sighed. “I’m just so worried that I’m fucking up. And I want to go and put Oz’s code right, but I’m not sure I’m not going to do something wrong and render him a vegetable if I do.”
Joel laughed. “If anyone has the ability to fix his code, it’s you. You’ll be able to figure it out; I have no doubt of that. You’re just questioning yourself. But I agree that it was a doofus move
to change his code in the first place. You know, in some ways I see his logical processing of morality as a good set of training wheels for you.”
Molly met his eyes as a light came on in her mind. “Yes! Yes, I see that too. He won’t let me steer wrong; it’s computer assisted learning! That’s brilliant!”
“Yeah, and where things get into the gray area, perhaps I can have the honor of being a set of training wheels or a sounding board or whatever metaphor works for you?”
Molly nodded. “I’d like that. You know,” she continued, settling back in her chair and swinging her legs onto the seat next to her, “I guess I’ve learned that morality is a little like trust. It’s not something that you can use sometimes and not others. If you lose someone’s trust, it doesn't matter that the other ninety-nine times you’ve been straight with them.”
Joel nodded, “That’s right, young ShyllWallgen!”
She chuckled.
He took another sip before using the bottle to point to her. “You know, I’ve got a great deal of respect for you, Molly Bates. I get the sense that wherever there is something you’re not sure about, you’re so willing to learn and then master it and there is no question that you will learn from the bad moves very quickly. You’ve got this. You really have.”
“Thanks, Joel. I appreciate it. And I appreciate you being here as my training wheels cum sounding board.” She paused as if wanting to bring something up, but not knowing if she should. “You know it's going to be dangerous.”
She didn’t know whether she was asking a question, or making a statement. But Joel was on the same page.
“Yeah, I think that is becoming more evident every day.”
“I haven’t really told you this, but this isn’t my first time dealing with groups like the Syndicate. It was a similar organization who nearly took out my parents. Had them on their knees in the living room, ready to assassinate them. I don’t know why they stopped. Everyone was dragged away by another group of men with guns. Someone intervened, and my parents came back unharmed. But these groups, with their commercial interests and total disregard for human life; they’re deadly. They kill anyone who gets in their way. And though I can't stand back any longer and let them get away with it, I need to be sure that you're getting into this for the right reasons.”
She paused, giving Joel the chance to think and respond.
He barely missed a beat.
“I am, Molly. I’ve always needed something to fight for, something bigger than myself.” He turned from looking at her, to looking over her shoulder at everything, and nothing. “For the longest time, I’d hoped that the military was it; but now I need something a little more discerning.” He returned to focusing on her. “I'm in.”
Molly nodded, looking intently at the floor again.
“Why does it make me feel so bad, that you're in and that you've got my back?” she mused, half to herself, and half to Joel. She didn’t like this kind of vulnerable talk, but she still felt that Joel might have some answers.
“Because you feel guilty?”
“Yeah. I guess. But, I don't understand why I still feel bad about it all. We’ve talked it through.”
Joel considered her position a moment. “Is it because you hurt someone you care about? Someone you know has got your back?”
Molly looked up again, her eyes lit in realization. “Yeah...I guess I've never been in this situation before. It’s always been me on my own.”
She paused for a moment, a very determined look spreading across her face.
“Okay. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to do everything I can to make this operation work. We're going to take out the bad guys and make this system a better place for everyone. Sometimes I won’t know the rules, so I’m going to need you to remind me. Because I never want to feel like this again.”
Joel was listening intently, taking in every word.
“But know this,” she continued. “If ever anything happens to you, or our people, those rules are null and void. I will do whatever it takes to make sure you are safe.”
“You already proved that to me when you saved my ass the other week. Although if we could avoid the electrocution next time, though, it would be very much appreciated.” Joel grinned, his comment showing he’d been caught a little off guard by Molly’s sudden display of passion.
Molly wasn’t done explaining, though. “Yeah, but then I didn't know the difference between right and wrong. But now…now I'll be knowingly crossing that line to make sure you're okay. I'm always coming for you. You understand?”
Joel swallowed, and nodded.
This was the moment he would look back on, when he realized that Molly was far more to him than just a colleague or a future ex-squeeze. He gazed at her while trying to define their relationship for himself.
He didn't know what this was evolving into, but he knew he no longer had any interest in getting her into bed.
He looked down at his pants and whispered under his breath, "Sorry, buddy. This one is off-limits."
Ten hours before ETA at Gaitune-67
The ship was in semi-darkness once Crash dimmed the lights. After such an adventurous day, almost the whole team was already flaked out and asleep. Calm had replaced the laughter and team-bonding that had filled the space not long before.
“Hey, Molly, shower’s free, if you want it.” Paige had touched her shoulder and was speaking gently to her.
Molly looked up from her holo, only now noticing that the cabin was in near darkness and most of the others were already asleep.
She looked back down the aisle. “Oh, great. Thanks.”
“What you working on so hard? You haven’t stirred for at least three hours.”
“Oh, I’m just working on some code. I need to make sure that when I reboot this software it doesn’t get corrupted. It’s tricky stuff.”
“But it’s going okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll get there.”
“By my ancestors, I wish I could code. I sometimes get sick of being just a dumb assistant to important people.”
Molly looked up at the young woman. “Hey, you’re not dumb. And you’ve only chosen to be an assistant so far. If you want to do something else when you go back, you will make it happen.”
Paige cocked her head, thinking about it. “Yeah. Hmmm…yeah, I guess you’re probably right.”
“Oh, I am. Most of the time.” Her eyes danced at her own joke. “It’s okay. It’s nerd humor. We all think that we’re the smartest ones on the planet. You’ll see when we start recruiting more nerds onto the team.”
“You mean you’re going to be hiring?”
“Yeah, hopefully sooner rather than later, once we get settled.”
“Hmmm.”
Paige clearly took that in, thought Molly to herself, her own cogs turning as she considered that Paige might actually stay with them.
“Okay, well, I left fresh towels out for you. The boys are mostly showering in the morning, so I’d get in there before they mess it up so badly it needs a deep clean.
The girls giggled as Paige turned and dumped her gear on her set of seats, then sat down to settle in like the others had.
Awakened Page 28
