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Mason nodded.
 
“I’m guessing it’s big.”

“Why’s that?”
 
Gairovald straightened his cuffs, then looked Mason in the eyes.
 
“Why do you think it’s big?”

“Because of them.”
 
Mason tipped his head to the guards on the door.
 
“Because of you.”

“You understand the situation.”

A laugh broke from Mason.
 
“I don’t pretend to understand anything, sir.”
 
He leaned forward, putting a hand against the table.
 
“I don’t need to.
 
It’s not my job.
 
But I promise you.
 
If someone’s stealing from the Federate — stealing from
you
— then I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Gairovald looked at Mason in silence for a few moments.
 
“I think I made the right choice.
 
You’re very dedicated.”
 
He held up a hand to Mason.
 
“No, don’t interrupt.
 
Your file speaks for itself.
 
There was a classified… R&D project within Apsel.”

“The rain?”

“The atmospheric effect, yes.”
 
Gairovald looked at the cufflink on his left sleeve, an intricate gold affair inlaid with diamonds.
 
“The atmospheric effect is a… byproduct.”

“A…”
 
Mason swallowed, then cleared his throat.
 
“Byproduct?”

“Yes.
 
When you were sent to… acquire the technology behind the atmospheric effect, well.
 
We didn’t know we already had it.
 
The files?
 
We have no reference to this sort of outcome.”

“That’s a pretty big byproduct.”
 
Mason leaned back in his chair.
 
“R&D didn’t know about it?”

“It’s not quite that simple.”
 
Gairovald held Mason’s gaze.
 
“It’s one of my earlier projects.
 
It’s been mothballed for quite some time, despite having significant future value to the Federate.”

Holy shit.
 
Gairovald hasn’t done the heavy lifting on the science in thirty years.
 
Mason nodded to himself.
 
“Ok, sir.
 
So — new mission?”

“New mission,” said Gairovald.
 
“Different outcome.”

“You want me to catch the thief.”

“No,” said Gairovald, standing.
 
He started walking towards the door, then turned back to Mason.
 
“No one steals from me.
 
I want you to kill the thief.”

⚔ ⚛ ⚔

Mason stared out the boardroom window.
 
He pressed a hand against the cool glass, the cloudscape stretched out below him grey and ugly.
 
“Did you get that?”

“Of course, Mason.”
 
Carter sighed.
 
“Why do you treat me like an idiot child?”

“For all I know, you could be an idiot child.”
 
Mason’s lips twitched.
 
“A savant, I mean.”

“I get it.”

“You know.
 
Like a chess master.”

“I said I get it.”

“Or—”

“Mason?
 
I got it.”

“Speaking of getting things.
 
Have we got a file?”

An icon flashed onto his overlay, information flicking over the uplink.
 
“Of course,” said Carter.
 
“Some of this is from Gairovald’s office.”

“Some of it?”

“I don’t spend my days surfing the Internet for porn, Mason.
 
I do research.”

“I don’t know where you find the time.”
 
Mason was already flicking through the information on his overlay.
 
“Something’s not right.”

“Something in particular?”

“Sort of.”

“That’s not very particular, Mason.
 
Do you know what ‘particular’ even means?”

Mason highlighted a section of information.
 
“Here.”

Carter was silent for a moment, then she said, “I see it.”

The information Mason had highlighted was an image from the old hotel’s basement, when —

Dead hands reached for him, the Tenko-Senshin screaming back at them in the darkness.
 
His heart hammered in his chest, and he stumbled back as parts of people fell and burned in front of him.

— he’d found the epicenter.
 
Mason swallowed, then cleared his throat.
 
“This one.
 
The image is from the box.”
 
Highlighted on the image was a charred piece of metal, the stenciled letters
APSEL FEDERATE — ATOMIC ENERGY DIVISION
still visible against the carbon scoring.

Carter was silent for no more than two heartbeats.
 
“It doesn’t have the R&D logo on it.”

“You’re pretty quick for an idiot child.”

“This wasn’t mothballed research at all.
 
This was live tech, taken from Atomics.”

“Maybe,” said Mason.
 
“It doesn’t really matter though.”

“It doesn’t?”
 
Carter sounded distracted.
 
“I’m going to pull together a… meeting between you and the department heads.”

“A meeting, sure.
 
The thing is, I don’t care if the tech came from R&D, or from Never Never Land.
 
Someone stole it.
 
Mission’s clear on that.
 
If it’s Peter fucking Pan, he’s going down.”

Carter cleared her throat.
 
“I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“About…
 
About your last handler.”

“Yeah.”
 
Mason let a breath out, realized he’d been clenching his fists.
 
“He made a bad call.”

“You’d been working with him for two years.”

“Thereabouts.”

“Did you have to kill him?”

“Yeah.”
 
Mason stood, walking towards the door.
 
“Yeah, I did, Carter.
 
He tried to steal from the company too.”

She was silent a few moments, and he let himself out.
 
He tossed a nod at Nancy, then headed for the elevators.

“I won’t let you down, Mason.”

“I know, Carter.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”
 
He clicked the button on the elevator, frowning.
 
Old school
.
 
Maybe Gairovald liked a bit of retro.

“You haven’t even met me.
 
How can you know?”

“I’m not sure.”
 
He stepped into the elevator.
 
“Research level.
 
Priority.”

The elevator chimed, and a soft voice spoke.
 
“Research level, priority confirmed.”

“What?” said Carter.

“I was talking to the elevator.”

“You didn’t tell me.
 
Why you know.”
 
Her voice was soft.

Mason leaned against the glass of the elevator, his back to the clouds as the car dropped.
 
“You haven’t let me down yet, Carter.”

“You—”
 
She stopped for a few moments.
 
The elevator whispered down the Apsel tower, and Mason turned to look out over the clouds.
 
Lightning cracked briefly through them, and then the elevator sunk below them.
 
Rain lashed the outside of the car and the city, dark far below.
 
The fucking rain
.
 
“I trust you too, Mason.”

“I didn’t say—”
 
Mason watched the city approach as the car descended.
 
“Hey.
 
Carter?”

“Yes, Mason?”

“Don’t get all mopey on me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mason.”
 
She clicked the link off.

He smiled as the elevator car got closer to the city.
 
Time to get serious, Mason.
 
He pulled his jacket closer to him, then turned to face the elevator doors.
 
Mason pulled a pack of Treasurers from his pocket and lit one.
 
The elevator chimed a warning at him, but he ignored it.
 
It was time to meet the department heads.

Senior people.
 
They made the technology that made Gairovald rich and powerful.
 
They could make or break a career around here.

Mason clenched his fist again, looking at it.
 
We’ll see who’s broken at the end of this
.

Laia looked over at Zacharies, the strain clear against his face.
 
Sweat was dripping off him in the heat of the desert.

The Master took no notice, the heavy whip in his hand moving slightly, as if it hand a mind of its own.
 
She watched the whip carefully, rubbing at the chafing under her collar, then wiped the sweat from her own face.

Zacharies was holding the divan above the desert floor, lifting and pushing it forward with his gift.
 
The Master was on top of it, sipping a blue liquid from a chilled glass.
 
Zacharies stumbled, and the divan trembled in the air, the blue liquid spilling over the Master’s fingers.

The whip came up.

“Master.”
 
Laia spoke fast.
 
She gave the air a gentle nudge, the softest breeze touching the slaver master’s dark robes.
 
“We have arrived.”

The whip stayed up in the air, then slowly lowered.
 
The Master looked down from the divan to the circular depression in the dessert floor.
 
The sand was charred and cracked, melted in places to glass.

“Good, slave.”
 
He stepped down from the divan, drink forgotten, glass weeping in the heat of the sun.
 
Zacharies breathed out as he let the divan down to touch the floor of the desert.

They stood together and watched as the Master walked around the blasted desert floor.
 
They said nothing to each other, but Laia looked over at Zacharies.
 
She worried for her brother.
 
The trip had been long over the wasted ground, and despite the heat he looked pale.
 
She almost reached out to touch him, then remembered the collar at her throat.
 
She sighed and looked away.

“Slave.”
 
The Master gestured at her.
 
“Can you feel it?”

Laia reached out with her mind, touching the ground whisper soft.
 
“It is…”

“What?”
 
The whip twitched.

“It’s hard to be sure.
 
But I think it was here.”

“Good.”
 
The whip fell back to the man’s side.
 
“Where did it go?”

“I—”
 
She faltered.
 
“It didn’t go anywhere.”

“Do you take me for an imbecile?”

“Master!
 
No, Master.”

“Then don’t treat me as one.”
 
The whip twitched again.
 
“The demon is clearly not
here
.”
 
His voice was soft now.
 
Laia dreaded the soft voice the most.

“I—”
 
She gestured at the circle in the ground.
 
“The demon was here, and then it wasn’t.
 
It’s gone.”

The man’s hood nodded.
 
“Then we will wait.”

Laia felt Zacharies relax at her side.
 
There would be no holding the divan above the hot desert floor for the return journey.
 
Not yet, anyway.
 
She looked at the whip.
 
If only there was some distraction out here.
 
Their Master was at his worst when he was bored.

The room’s windows were tinted a dark grey, the adaptive glass darkened for privacy.
 
Mason could feel the stretch of the lattice under his skin, pulling at him.
 
Maybe later
.
 
The table sat between them, the black glass filled with images and icons.
 
Information.

Evidence
.

Mason looked at the three of them, sitting across the table from him.
 
The table was a barrier of sorts, a gold Apsel falcon etched into each corner, wings stretched and proud.
 
He sighed, looking at his hands splayed on the surface.
 
“It’s going to be like that, is it?”

“Mr. Floyd.
 
I’m not sure—”
 
It was the fat black man, sweat showing at his temple.
 
He cut himself off as Mason’s eyes flicked to him, and then to the empty chair.

The woman spoke up.
 
She sat in the middle, the fat black man to her right, the guy so thin he was gaunt to her left.
 
Mason didn’t care what their names were, but she was the only one that looked like an actual doctor, white lab coat slung over some civilian threads.
 
“We responded to your request as quickly as we could.”
 
The gaunt man nodded in agreement, fiddling with the cuffs of his jacket.

Mason sighed again, then pointed to the empty chair.
 
“One of you is missing.”

“Yes, but—”

Mason held up a hand, then pointed at the gaunt man.
 
“Military Applications?”

The man nodded.
 
“That’s right, Mr. Floyd—”

“Shut it.”
 
Mason pointed at the woman.
 
“Medical?”