GABRIEL #6
He says his new office is two buildings down, and since he has business there on Saturday anyway, he can stop by after he finishes, around 2 pm.
After I hang up with Veyron, I sit there for a while, mindlessly turning my phone in my fingers.
I feel this urge to talk to someone on a deeper level, and my father comes to mind. I want to vent to him, but when I finally dial his number and hear the heaviness in his voice, the mood slips away.
He immediately starts firing off anxious questions about my living situation, my job, my working relationship with Blue, and I can feel everything I wanted to say getting stuck in my throat, my nervousness rising.
In the end, the conversation is even shorter than the one with Veyron. I tell him everything is fine, and that for now I have no problems at work, which is kind of a lie.
But my father somehow senses my mood and hands the phone over to Dad, who immediately starts asking me questions in Russian. Ты здоров?[10] Do I have everything I need? Am I eating properly? Do I still have time to study? Am I logging into my classes?
And of course, the most important question of all: have I started looking for a suitable omega yet?
It’s his favorite topic, right alongside the massive pack of grandchildren he’s impatiently waiting for.
He even suggests lending me his cyan talisman to boost my luck a little, but I politely refuse. I know he’s very attached to the small gem.
Finally, Dad asks me to call Marlow as well, since he apparently misses me, keeps wondering about me, and is bored alone in his dorm room.
Deep down, I decide to bring up the possibility of seeing Marlow next week with Blue, because I feel guilty that my brother, whom I used to be practically inseparable from, is now alone.
He isn’t someone surrounded by a large group of friends, but more of a loner, far more withdrawn than I am, and losing his connection with me may mean more to him than it would to me in the same situation.
I’ve always been drawn to people. Even if I stayed in the background of a group, I still managed to find some kind of company, while he struggles with that.
Socializing has always been much harder for him.
◆◆◆
On Saturday, Blue wakes up later than usual.
We head to the lab at 9 am. He doesn’t bring his usual tablet, instead activating a virtual interface through his glasses. During the ride, I can tell he’s reviewing something on the tiny displays built into the lenses.
The lab where Blue conducts his experiments is three blocks away from the tower. He has an entire section there filled with equipment probably worth millions. If Marcel knew about it, he would probably target this place.
When we enter the lab and Blue gets to work, his glasses suddenly emit a soft sound.
He sometimes routes calls through them, but now he takes out his phone and looks at the screen with surprise.
I sit in the main lab area while he goes into a soundproof glass room that houses equipment requiring silence and no vibrations. That is where he takes the call.
When he finishes, about fifteen minutes later, a man enters the lab carrying a large package.
He leaves it on one of the analysis tables and walks out. I watch Blue from a distance and don't approach, since it is not my business.
But after a moment, I see something astonishing. Inside the package is a… mechanical arm!
I cannot hide my surprise. I stand up and slowly walk toward the table where Blue is standing. He notices my interest.
This is probably the only way I can safely engage with him now, through scientific curiosity, because that is something Blue understands.
"Wow, biorobotics? That’s one of the fields that really interests me," I say, unwilling to keep my distance, but Blue doesn’t seem to mind.
"Incredible story," he says, looking somewhat excited. "You will never guess who this arm belonged to."
I step closer and lightly touch the mechanical fingers.
"I don’t know who, but it looks like very high-end equipment."
"Custom-made. Almost two decades ago, I was still only the deputy head of development at Malden Pharmaceuticals.
They had just opened a bionics division, Malden Tech.
Everything was in its early stages, but we had excellent scientists.
A man came to us who had lost his arm… the capo of the largest mafia family in this city, Anzo Ferro. "
"Wow! The same one who ordered a hit on you lately? The bomb planted at the Fate’s Choice agency?"
"Yes, the same. But back then, you could say we were almost friendly. I had not yet started the Beta Activation program, which later caused a feud between us. At the time, I was just one of the scientists who helped create this arm for him."
"Seriously? Then why is it being sent back now? Is he not using it?"
Blue gives me a cryptic smirk.
"That is the best part. The arm was delivered to me by the warden of the prison where Anzo is currently being held. He noticed a small Malden logo on it. They did not want to throw it away, since they figured it was valuable technology, and Anzo no longer needs it."
"Wait. Why? If he doesn't have an arm, then…"
"He has an arm now."
I stare at him in disbelief.
"What do you mean, he has an arm now?"
Blue sighs, then picks up a control device, a heavy industrial tablet, and connects it to the side cables protruding from the arm.
I watch in surprise.
"Well… Anzo found his True Mate in prison. Within a month of being there, his arm grew back. The artificial one is no longer needed."
My jaw literally drops.
"Holy shit! The True Mate Bond is powerful enough to regenerate a whole missing organ?"
"Yes, exactly." On the screen, Blue inputs a command, and the arm moves its fingers. It looks rather macabre.
"Wait," I murmur, watching how easily he controls it, because something doesn't add up. "Do you have expertise in technology and bioengineering too? Not just genetics and pharmacy?"
Blue raises his eyebrows as if I asked something obvious.
"Of course. I hold four doctorates, one of them in bioengineering with a specialization in nanobiotechnology."
I feel like an idiot.
"When I was talking about all the things I do… you know, the hacking stuff, back then…"
"What about it?" Blue raises an eyebrow.
"I mean, could you do that too?"
"Well. I have never hacked into any electronic system for legal reasons. But I’m positive I would be capable of it if I applied a bit of effort."
"Being around someone like you can give a person an inferiority complex," I mutter darkly. "And here I thought I had an edge over you in something."
Blue shrugs, still issuing commands to the arm as it bends and straightens.
"Gabriel, this is childish. You and I are not in competition. I have devoted my life to science, and you are still a student. However, you do have an edge in radio-frequency hacking, I assure you."
"Whatever," I mutter under my breath, feeling a bit uneasy.
To be fair, he’s basically right. My need to shine in front of him is a little juvenile.
And I think there’s another reason, too. I guess I want to have something that might impress him… Ugh! I really don’t understand myself sometimes.
Blue studies some entries in the device logs for a moment. I look at them as well.
"There is a slight delay in the signal," he says in a quiet voice.
Curious, I lean in and analyze the logs. Blue shifts the tablet toward me, noticing my interest.
"Not just a delay," I murmur, sliding my finger across the screen. "Look here. Every command goes through a smoothing filter and gets queued. That queue occasionally clogs, and the system starts buffering commands instead of executing them in real time."
I frown. Blue stays silent, watching me attentively. We are standing very close now, almost head-to-head. I can smell him: his shampoo, even the faint scent of his skin, which is so sweet, alluring, intoxicating.
It takes a lot to focus.
"On top of that, you have packet retransmissions. See these repeats? The signal doesn't go through on the first attempt, so the controller resends it. That adds extra milliseconds."
I glance at him briefly. Those large sapphire eyes are close again, close enough to get lost in if I don't control myself. I exhale, fighting the urge to look at his plump lips.
"This is not a mechanical issue. It is communication and control. Either the bus is overloaded, or someone set the filtering too aggressively, and the system is creating its own lag."
For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. I just inhale his closeness.
Finally, Blue speaks.
"Why did you sabotage your future, Gabriel? I find it hard to understand. At this point, you are already ahead of some scientists I know. You have an intuitive understanding of these matters at a rare level."
I take a step back, even though I would rather stay close to him, endlessly catching the scent of his silky strands and the subtle fragrance of his body.
"I didn’t exactly plan on… you know," I gesture vaguely, "sabotaging myself and ending up like this."
Silence.
The only sounds in the room are the quiet scraping of the metal fingers of Anzo Ferro’s former arm moving across the surface of the lab table and Blue’s slightly elevated heartbeat.
I don’t say anything for a while. I can feel it creeping in, that familiar weight, the awareness of how far off track everything went.
"I had something lined up," I admit after a moment, my voice gloomy. "An internship, maybe a junior position later. Nothing huge, but it was a start."
"Where?"
"D-Project. A division that tests the security of client systems and designs new solutions in that area."
There is a pause. I don't look at him. My eyes are fixed on the floor, and for a few seconds I stay like that, letting the silence stretch.
Then, after a moment, he speaks, the tone of his voice a bit softer than before.
"My company maintains an internal IT division."
I glance up, slightly surprised.