3. Seventeen Names #2
His voice, when he’s working, does a gravel-register thing that lowers my shoulders by half an inch whether I authorize the movement or not.
The silence does something worse. The silence makes me aware of the absence of his voice, which is a category of awareness I did not know existed before this morning and am furious to have encountered.
I keep my eyes on the datapad.
“One match,” SPROUT announces. “High confidence. Tomas Harkin. Maintenance tech, Level Three. Eight years on Junction One. Accessed the camera array maintenance protocol at 0314, seventy-two hours before Torek vanished, logged as routine calibration update. I have compared the calibration schedule attached to this entry to the master schedule maintained by Head of Station Security Torres. The schedules do not align. The entry was manufactured.”
“And the trace at the array is his,” Tael says. Quiet. “Same signature as the clamps. He didn’t just open the window. He was on the dock when the ship came through it.”
My stomach drops.
Not analytical recognition of evidence fitting a pattern. The physical, gut-deep revulsion of someone I trusted, someone whose hands have been in my infrastructure, using that access to help take a male from under my cameras.
My system. My vetting. My trust.
“Harkin.” I say it out loud because saying it out loud means I have to deal with it. “He fixed a ventilation issue in my office. He brought his own tools.”
Petra is off her desk. The bear, goes on the chair she’s abandoning. She crosses to the notice board with a speed that is not a stroll and not a run, and somehow covers the distance before I register her starting.
“What are you looking at?”
“Classified security data.”
“Really?” Petra’s eyes flick from my face to the briefing table. To Vosk. Back to my face. The grin sharpens into something with teeth. “Because from over there, it looked like you were looking at something way more interesting than data.”
“I was reviewing the access list.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She is no longer looking at me. She is looking past my shoulder, at the briefing table, with the expression of a woman who has just confirmed a hypothesis and is about to enjoy every consequence of the confirmation.
“Vosk.”
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You’re about to.”
“I am about to do what any concerned colleague would do in a situation involving a chair angle and a biological response I am not qualified to diagnose.”
“Petra.”
“I’m just observing, Vosk. I’m very good at observing.
It’s one of my skills.” Petra ticks them off on her fingers.
“Looking at things. Opening things. Knowing when food is about to expire. Noticing when a six-foot-five Draelith tracker has his entire tail pointed at a Head of Station Security from across a room.”
The room goes silent.
Tael’s voice, from the briefing table. Level. “My tail is not pointed at anything.”
“Your tail is pointed in a direction I can see from here.”
“Directions are relative.”
“This one isn’t.”
“Petra.”
“I saved your life once, Vosk.”
“You did not save my life. You ate my protein bar.”
“The protein bar had two hours left. I’m a hero. And I think, as your hero, I’m entitled to report on certain phenomena when they occur within my field of vision.”
“Your field of vision is fifteen feet wide and not accredited.”
I have to say something. I can feel it building in my throat, but I do not want to say anything.
Saying anything means acknowledging the scene is happening, and the scene is happening between a chaos-agent ex-courier and a Draelith tracker who is, I note without looking, very deliberately not adjusting his tail in case the adjusting becomes further evidence.
“Petra.” Flossie, from her desk. Warm. Very warm. “Lovey. We’re in the middle of a case.”
“I know. I’m providing color commentary.”
“You’re providing a deposition.”
“I am providing context for the record. Sprout, you catching this?”
“I am not catching this, Petra. I am filing it. There is a difference.” SPROUT’s amber light pulses once. “Under Ambient Observations: Unsolicited. The sub-folder is expanding at approximately three entries per minute.”
I am looking at the datapad. I am looking very hard at the datapad.
The datapad contains the name of a man who used my system against me, and the datapad is safe, and I am going to focus on it and not on the fact that Petra Phan is conducting a public wellness check on a Draelith’s tail orientation in the middle of a kidnapping briefing.
Petra, at my elbow now, quieter now. Almost sweet. “You okay, Torres?”
“I’m reviewing the access list.”
“Okay.” She pats my arm once. Brisk. Professional. It is the least professional pat I have ever received. “Just checking.”
She turns to go back to her desk. Stops. Turns back.
Her eyes move to my scar. Because Petra looks at everything the way I check monitors: comprehensively, without asking permission.
“How’d you get the scar?”
“I disagreed with a commanding officer.”
“…Physically?”
“Yes.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
Petra’s shoulders settle. The grin settles into something else. Something softer. The look of a woman who got fired for opening a diplomatic pouch she’d been told not to touch, recognizing a woman who got fired for opening a commanding officer’s jaw.
“I like you, Torres.”
She goes back to her desk. Picks up the bear. Holds him against her upper body the way someone holds a thing they need, and doesn’t explain, and I don’t ask, because some things don’t need explaining. They just need holding.
Something in me loosens. Not the wanting; that’s still there, occupying its designated corner of my awareness and refusing to pay rent.
The part of me that has been standing alone in gaps for four years and has noticed that this room, for all its fairy lights and poor decisions, is full of people who stand in gaps too.
Who got fired, got terminated, got discarded by systems that didn’t deserve them.
Who ended up here because a woman with a notebook decided they belonged.
I don’t belong here. I’m Junction One security. Coordination, not crew.
“Harkin’s shift pattern,” Xor says. Flat. Bringing us back. “He is on-station?”
I pull up the maintenance roster. Scroll. Find him. “Level Three. Finishing his rotation.” I check the time against the equipment log. 1614. “Equipment return starts at 1745. He logs in, stows his tools, logs out. Fifteen-minute window. Single door. No vent he fits through.”
“Tidy.”
“Tidy is what I need.”
“Team?”
“Myself and two Junction One security officers.” This is a clean answer to a clean question. This is a takedown. I know how to do takedowns. I have done dozens of them and none of them have involved a Draelith. “Harkin won’t see me coming. In and out.”
Xor nods. Once. The Xarthian equivalent of a written approval stamp.
Tael’s voice cuts across the room. Casual. A male considering the weather.
“You’ll want a tracker.”
Three heads turn toward him. Petra’s, Flossie’s, and, traitorously, mine.
“I have a take-down plan.”
“You have an arrest plan.” He is still looking at whatever is on the display in front of him.
The voice is gravel-smooth, working-register, entirely unconcerned.
“Different product. The synthetic compound from Bay 7: if Harkin has been handling it, he’s been handling it inside two days.
It’ll be on his hands, his tools, the edges of his locker.
I can confirm the match in the room, before you walk him off the station.
That turns a who accessed the system case into a who was running the compound case, which is the one you actually want. ”