“WELL, it looks like you were right after all,” said Home Planet Liaison Reilly. He didn’t actually seem that unhappy. Holiday would have thought Reilly would cut off one of his own fingers before willingly admitting he’d been wrong and Holiday had been right.
Ironically, Holiday was the unhappy one. He hardly seemed to be listening. “Looks like,” he said. He wasn’t looking at Reilly. He was looking at a letter lying on his desk.
“Something wrong?” asked Reilly. “I thought you’d be gloating the minute I walked in.”
As if finally realizing he had a visitor in his office, Holiday folded the letter, sat back in his chair, and said: “We don’t all gloat every time we’re right about something, Reilly. Some of us are more used to it than others.”
Reilly ignored the jab. “Jillian Branch just helped nab one of the biggest crime ring leaders in Anterra. She’s proven herself. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Holiday smiled mirthlessly. “I guess we both got something we wanted tonight. I wanted Jill to prove herself. You wanted her out of the department.”
Reilly blinked. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying she’s resigned,” said Holiday. He stood as if to say goodbye. The conversation was obviously over.
Reilly had a puzzled look on his tight facial features as he left the office.
Outside the back entrance to the office, Corey Stone finally pulled his ear away from the cracked-open door. “No, Jill...” he whispered.
JILL took a minute to look around her room. It had felt like home the moment she stepped into it. It still felt like home.
Home is the hardest place to leave.
She took in a deep breath, let it go slowly, and walked out.
It was two in the morning. The dorms were silent. So was the lounge. So was the hallway.
Not the elevator lobby.
Corey Stone sat in a chair next to the elevator call button. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Jill kept her face expressionless. “What difference does it make to you?”
Corey stood and leaned against the wall...in front of the call button. “Don’t do it, Jill.”
She cleared her throat. “Look, it’s not what you think.”
“You think I still think you’re a traitor? I don’t. Believe me, I know what you’re about to do, and I’m warning you: don’t.”
She gave him an accusing look. “You’ve been talking to the director, haven’t you?”
Corey didn’t answer. He just stood there with his arms crossed.
Jill sighed. “Remember what I told you when I first came back here?” she said quietly. “The minute I stepped out of line again...”
“...you’d be the first one to bring yourself back to jail. Yeah, I remember. You remember what else you told me that day? You said that if we all went behind bars if we deserved it, I should be in the cell next to yours.”
“Then come on down and turn yourself in with me.”
He shook his head. “I can’t let you do this. Stay here. There’s more work to do, Jill.”
She wasn’t listening to him. Her eyes drifted. “You always tell yourself you’re not hurting anyone,” she said softly. Corey was hearing her, but she wasn’t exactly talking to him. Or to anyone. “You always tell yourself what you’re doing is not really that bad. But in the end you can’t escape the fact that you’re part of something—” She searched for the right word. “Something evil. Small part or big part, it doesn’t matter.” Her eyes still looked beyond Corey, beyond the room, beyond the present.
She thought of a fifteen-year-old boy with red hair and desperate eyes...
As if finally remembering where she was her eyes looked back into Corey’s. “I’m turning myself in, Corey. I don’t belong here. It’s time I paid for everything I did in the past. It’s the only logical thing to do.”
Corey met her gaze. “There’s more to this place than that kind of logic.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
Corey stepped toward her. “We need you, Jill. The department needs you.”
“I came here as a traitor.”
He scoffed. “If you were really a traitor to our department, you wouldn’t have saved it.”
“I came here as a spy for Sketch,” she said. “It was an errand.”
“You were already planning on joining the department, even before Sketch got to you. Weren’t you?”
Jill hesitated. “You want the honest truth?” she said. “When I first came back to the department, I didn’t know why I was here. Part of me thought I’d just end up selling department secrets to Sketch.”
“But another part of you?” Corey prompted.
She swallowed and looked at the floor. “Another part of me thought I could really do it. I could really join the department and be one of the good guys. I could really have a reason to get up in the morning, do something meaningful with my life.” Were her eyes getting a little misty? She would not let herself cry in front of Corey Stone!
“I think I know why you came back,” said Corey. “You came back because you belong here. Maybe you couldn’t admit it to yourself at the time, but you knew it deep down. And you know something? I knew it too, even though I didn’t want to admit it either.”
When she dried her eyes she saw the department emblem on the lobby floor.
Did she belong here?
Corey stood firmly between her and the elevator door. “I’m not letting you leave, Jill. This is the place for you.”
She sniffled. “You can’t stand there forever.”
He looked fixedly at her several long seconds. Finally he sighed and dropped his hands to his sides. “You’re right,” he admitted. He stepped out of the way.
She saw the elevator in front of her, now. She stared at it. But somehow she couldn’t move toward it.
“Just know,” said Corey, “that if you go you’ll be leaving a huge hole around here. I don’t know how we’ll replace you.”
He started back for the dorms.
She was still looking at the elevator. Still not moving. “Corey?” she called.
He paused before the hallway. “Yeah?”
She’d wanted to ask him since it had happened. “Why did you punch Bradley?”
At first the question caught him off guard. But in a moment he was chuckling satisfactorily at the memory. “He called you a half-blood.”
“I am a half-blood.”
“He meant it as an insult.”
“You thought I’d just betrayed the department to a thug. Didn’t I deserve any insult I got?”
Corey pondered his answer for a minute. “He was acting like he deserved to be part of our team more than you did.”
“And you didn’t think so?”
Corey shook his head. “None of us deserves to be here, Jill. Not a single one of us. I think I’m finally starting to figure that out.”
And then he disappeared down the hall, and Jill was alone with the elevator doors.
She thought about his words a long time.
They were still ringing in her head by the time she fell asleep back in her room an hour later.
SHE woke up in time to stumble over to the caf for breakfast before it closed. She made it about a step and a half through the door before Dizzie assaulted her with a hug. “How’s your shoulder? So much for not going on another mission for a while, huh?”
Amber was right behind her. Jill tried not to stare—she hadn’t even done her hair this morning.
Then Corey arrived, looking like he’d meant to arrive much sooner. The minute he stepped through the caf doors his tired eyes darted nervously around until he found Jill.
She smiled at him.
Every fiber of his being seemed to go from tense to relaxed as he smiled back. He took a step toward the food line, paused, turned around and went back toward the dorms.
Jill chuckled to herself. He looked like he hadn’t so much as closed his eyes last night.
SEVERAL interesting mailings went out from GoCom that morning.
One was addressed to Matt at the Northshore Garage. “Thanks for the Translation,” it said. Enclosed was a check for seven hundred and fifty credits.
Another was addressed to Fat Frank. It had a note with a single word: “Sorry.” It included a sizable anonymous check and a coupon for Mike’s Auto Body and Glass Repair.
A third was addressed to the cathedral downtown, with a note with the same single word: “Sorry.” This one included an anonymous check for at least the amount required to replace a stained glass window.
None of the letters was signed.
DIZZIE pounded on Jill’s room door and burst in without waiting for a response. Mandy and Amber were in her wake.
“We’re celebrating last night’s victory by going out to lunch,” she beamed.
“Cool,” said Jill. She tried not to look like they woke her up—like she’d just been lying in bed relaxing. “Where at?”
“Tail of the Dragon!”
“Dizzie’s favorite Chinese buffet,” Mandy explained.
“Everyone’s favorite Chinese buffet!”
“Whatever she tells you,” Mandy whispered as though Dizzie couldn’t hear, “don’t try the sesame chicken.”
“Try the sesame chicken!” said Dizzie, elbowing Mandy.
“We’re meeting in the garage at noon to head there if you want to join us,” said Amber.
“Actually, can I meet you there?” said Jill. “I was hoping to get out and spend a little time alone this morning.”
Dizzie had barely opened her mouth before Mandy put a hand over it. “That’s great, Jill,” she said. “See you then. Come on, Dizzie.”
Dizzie sputtered as Mandy tugged her out. Amber exchanged amused looks with Jill before stepping back out and closing the door.
By midmorning Jill was on her skybike heading south on Route 6 away from downtown. The hazy dome of the Home Planet loomed distantly to her left.
She dropped to street level as she got off the highway and made her way to an abandoned neighborhood. She parked in a particular alley, stood at its mouth, and looked across the street.
...At a certain third-story window. Just for old time’s sake.
It was lifetime ago—almost literally—since she’d been here in the dark and the rain. That’s when it had all started. Watch for the light, Director Holiday had told her on the phone.
And she had watched.
COMING SOON:
THE
DARK BENEATH
A NOVEL OF THE NEXUS
Check out the author’s blog,
JKraftMitchell.WordPress.com
for more info, updates, etc.
J. KRAFT MITCHELL lives and works in Colorado. The Nexus is his first novel. It won’t be his last.
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