Found Wanting: the VIP

[lb_lee]

Summary: A terrible Thanksgiving day shift involving a very important person's very important pigeon.
Word Count: 5600
Notes: Would you believe I first started trying to write this mother in 2006? I might still have an old sketch of Bob saying, "you're not eating that, are you? It's low-fat."
Story Index

The VIP

Grey really does try to make Bob hate her.

Before 9/11, she does well. A man as expressive and catty as him proves easy to irritate; all she has to do is make herself social dead weight, be the goylem he expects her to be, and watch him climb the walls. After he confuses South Fifth Street and Fifth Street South, she double-checks all his directions until he tells her to go to hell and hangs up on her. Larkin tells her, “don’t be petty, Grey,” but still, it’s very satisfying.

After 9/11, it stops being enjoyable. All the sniping in the world can’t hide the misery on Bob’s face after being denied his Diwali leave, and Grey relents. It’s not his fault that she’s attracted to him, and her personal issues take a back seat to his basic comfort at work.

 

So she tries to split the difference, stay unresponsive socially but trading candy back and forth through Diwali. She eats a lot of those cashew fudge things (delicious) and even overcomes her fear of cooking enough to make a (burnt) batch of coconut macaroons. It’s an embarrassment, compared to Bob’s offerings, but she has to try. Management is being needlessly harsh forcing him to work through this. It’s not as though Diwali runs on a skeleton crew.

Thanksgiving does, though. Grey’s there by choice (she works all holidays) and normally Darlene is too (she hates Thanksgiving), but she’s out sick. With all the people out on holiday, Management had to call in Williamson, who’s ostensibly the captain of Comm third shift, but only since last week. He’s one of the 9/11 restructure hires, not happy about being dragged out for a double on a holiday with no notice, and he seems to especially dislike Bob, who spends the shift taking refuge in Grey’s office under the pretense of doing work for her.

“He’s running on caffeine and stress, praying nothing important happens,” Bob says over lunch, “so, of course, we’ve got an emergency.”

Of course. “What is it?” Grey asks as she sucks down instant noodles.

Bob has relaxed enough around Grey to sit on her desk. “Remember that very important meeting of very important people Management had yesterday? Well, one of them lost their very important pet. They insist their precious baby must only be reclaimed by our best—national security—and you’re the highest ranked on shift. Congratulations.”

VIP personal problems are glorified babysitting. “Who’s the VIP?”

“Anything involving that meeting is apparently above my pay grade,” Bob says bitterly. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“No,” Grey says. “Meeting was Management and Neurophysics only.”

“Really? Huh. Anyway, it’s basically a pigeon. Chipped too; the VIP says that the League satellite that we apparently tolerate in our air space located it by the Supermart off Autumnville.”

The Supermart has a concrete parking garage and a rail stop. There will be a thousand pigeons. “Description?”

“Uh…” Bob checks the papers in his hands. “It’s a ‘very fancy pigeon.’”

Grey doesn’t have to say anything.

“Look, I’m sorry, the VIP is too pissy to answer questions, Williamson’s too pissy to ask, and our missing property database must be running slow again, because it’s not there. That’s it: fancy pigeon, clipped wings, return ASAP.”

Grey sighs, wolfs her noodles, and goes to get a net (and some traps, at Williamson’s insistence). Then she heads for the Supermart. The whole way there, Williamson pesters her with calls through Bob. At first, Bob makes light of it, but it becomes less funny as it goes on:

“Are you there yet? Asking for Williamson.”

“How about now?”

“Me again. Where are you?”

Grey suppresses her annoyance. She can barely talk and drive at the same time, has to pull over for every call, so all Williamson’s badgering does is slow her down. Judging by his tone, Bob knows it too, but Williamson must be leaning on him hard enough that he has to badger her anyway, and Grey doesn’t have the heart to screen the calls and leave him to take the heat. It’s a relief when she finally arrives and reports in, hopefully earning herself some peace and quiet in which to search.

This part isn’t so bad. Grey doesn’t mind doing tedious work on her own; nobody can bother her about how she does it, as long as she does it well. And on Thanksgiving Day, the Supermart is mostly deserted.

By people, anyway. The pigeons are out in force. Grey can already tell that she was right about the traps being useless; she’ll catch a dozen locals first. The only way to find her target is to chase the flocks and see which birds don’t take flight. It’s silly but better than dealing with Williamson, so she gets to work.

The first flock takes off unanimously. Same with the second. The third has a straggler, but old, ragged, and sick, obviously not a fancy pet. Grey lets it be.

The fourth flock is around back in employee parking, pecking around a Dumpster. She doesn’t even need to give chase to know she’s found her bird.

It is indeed a very fancy pigeon, with a long tail, unnaturally vivid colors of pink and blue, and feathers dished in such a way that its head looks like an enormous marshmallow. There’s no way it could be local, even ignoring the silver collar yoke around its throat. If Williamson (or the VIP) had been clearer… but oh well. At least finding it wasn’t too difficult.

Then she tries catching it.

The moment she gets the net, the pigeon’s head pops up. When she approaches, it bolts, flapping and whistling and sending the flock flying. For a flightless bird, it proves surprisingly speedy; it zigzags, spins, twirls, and Grey must spend twenty minutes chasing it around the asphalt before it scuttles under a low-rider.

It’s a good hiding spot, too low for Grey to crawl under and squeezed too close against a concrete loading dock for her to go around the other side. She tries putting a trap close by; the pigeon ignores it.

She’s forcing herself to her knees to see if she can nudge the pigeon out with the net handle when her phone rings.

“Me again,” Bob says in a threadbare voice. “Found it?”

“Yes.”

“Caught it?”

“No.” She eyes the bird. It fluffs itself anxiously. “Working on it.”

Diplomatic pause. “Williamson really wants it back.”

“I know.” She sits with a hiss of pain. “Let him catch it.”

“So you do have a personality!”

Grey grimaces. She goes silent, tries to be dead weight, but it’s too late.

“Ha! I knew it.” After a moment, Bob seems to decide that if Grey has a personality, maybe she’s someone he can tell: “hey, something’s off.”

Grey eyes the pigeon, who has settled into a quivering loaf. “What?”

“I don’t know. But Williamson won’t let me anywhere near the VIP—I still have no idea who this person is, only that they make Williamson very nervous. Why even bring a damned pet to a hush-hush peripheral meeting, anyway?”

“Service animal?” That might explain the cleverness.

“Then why did it take a day to notice it was missing?” That, Grey has no answer for. “And if it’s that valuable, why such a lousy description? Why don’t they have a local copy of what they put into the missing property database? We might not have decent access, but they must.”

That does seem strange. “Still not there?”

“Nope. And for once, the problem isn’t on our end; we’ve had new entries come in. Vehicles, livestock, proprietary tech… but no pigeon. Williamson tells me to butt out, but…”

Grey thinks. To her, this is just another babysitting job, full of human error and high-strung emotions that she doesn’t want to deal with, but Bob got hired because he smelled a rat. More than that, he was right. “Look into it. My order.” That’s an ordinary task for someone in Ops to request of their comboy. Maybe it’ll get Williamson off Bob’s back.

“Will do. And since I’ve got you on the line with our very important pigeon, anything special about it?” He’s covering his bases, but his tone makes it clear how silly he finds the idea of a special pigeon.

Grey stares hard at the bird, which shudders and pulls its marshmallow head deeper into its body. Feeling absurd, she moves the phone to her other hand and signs, “Know SGSL?”

The pigeon’s head snaps up. It leaps to its feet. It has no hands (someone must’ve taken its pack) but it extends one wing forward, not to the side as though flapping, and snaps it down vertically—a very clear “yes” in SGSL.

Still, just in case it’s a fluke, Grey signs, “Please sign yes and no.” That can be expressed without hands.

Sure enough, the pigeon repeats the vertical wing snap, then a sharp horizontal one, and Grey marinates in horror. She’s been chasing a sapient—a person—around the Supermart with a net.

Where are its hands? Why is it wearing a collar? Why isn’t it broadcasting? All constructs without hands or vocal cords have transceivers; it’s how they communicate, but Grey doesn’t hear that unsettling radio voice in her head.

Something is wrong, and Grey’s mind is too slow and clunky to figure it out. But she has someone much faster on the line. Pinning her phone to her ear with her shoulder so she can sign frantic two-handed apologies to the pigeon, she says to Bob, “Sapient.”

“What?”

“Missing persons. Any birds?”

“Uh—” she hears a clattering keyboard. “I don’t know about birds, but there is a glitch listing, no photo, the name is a random number string—”

A number in missing persons could mean an emancipated construct. Bob hasn’t dealt with that before, so he couldn’t have known, but a Comm captain should’ve. “Who is it?”

“Let’s see, 9109 from Fluji Alpha, went missing a few weeks ago. Works for, uh, Konpom Anikonpomka, whatever that is…”

“Construct Deconglom,” Grey translates. “Construct rights?”

“I’ll look it up, but jump back: this pigeon is an activist pet?”

“Not a pet,” Grey says. “Nobody owns it. Someone took its pack, put a collar on it. Emancipated constructs don’t wear collars.”

“Does it have a name on it? Maybe this isn’t 9109.”

Grey squints, but the letters are too small to make out. She signs to the pigeon, “Are you 9109?”

Vertical wing swipe: yes.

“Is that collar yours?”

Emphatic horizontal: no!

“May I see it?”

The pigeon comes out from under the low-rider.

The collar is small and silver, with no obvious catch to open it. When Grey feels for one (after asking 9109’s permission), she feels an engraving, but before she can read it, a holographic message pops up in StanG: GENE-LOCKED.

“It’s 9109,” Grey says, her blood freezing. If it’s an emancipated construct working in construct rights, “it” is likely how it would refer to itself in English. Grey doesn’t understand those politics, but she doesn’t have to. She squints to make out the engraving. “Gene-locked collar, reads ‘Apur 5447’ in StanG.”

She hears Bob fumble for pen and paper. “Spell Apur for me?”

She does, romanized since Bob can’t read StanG. “Look into it. And get me a fizzy and Larkin to translate.” Larkin always gets the worst shifts, so she’s on, and 9109 is stressed and upset; it needs Larkin’s diplomacy, her people skills.

Bob makes a dubious sound. “Williamson says nobody but you. He’s pissed enough that having you means having me.”

“I don’t know no-hands SGSL,” Grey says. This is a lot of talking for her, and she’s upset; her chest is getting tight, and her throat is threatening to lock. “I’ve scared it. I’ve—I’ve done it wrong. I’m wrong. It needs—it needs not-me. Please, Bob.”

Silence for a moment. Bob has never heard her upset before. Then he says, “Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” and hangs up.

Grey looks at the pigeon, who’s eyeing her hopefully with its cocked marshmallow head. It’s clearly been through an ordeal, dirty and disheveled. She doesn’t know what’s happened to it or how it’s ended up here in a collar, but she’s going to do her job. 9109 is a fugitive construct, and it is on free land. It is not a VIP’s pet.

Grey’s throat has locked, but she can still speak SGSL. She tries to keep her face flat. “I’m sorry,” she signs. “My error. Translator coming soon.”

9109 relaxes. It settles by Grey’s knee, which is starting to stiffen up, and returns to loafing. Grey gets up to stretch and pace. It eases her knees and helps her think. 9109 does nothing to get her attention; it too seems to be thinking.

Larkin and Harmonius arrive within thirty minutes from the Supermart. She has a bag of pigeon feed; he has his box and a bad cold.

Grey doesn’t like fizzies—they make her uncomfortable—but Harmonius clearly should be in bed. “Sick?”

Harmonius’s voice is congested. “Ah, it’s getting better. I swapped shifts yesterday.” He sees 9109 and his eyebrows go up. “Oh hey, a bird++.”

Larkin bows to 9109, who bobs back. “I apologize for your treatment, 9109,” she says in StanG with her smooth, calm river voice. “We are working to correct it as quickly as possible. I’ve brought food for you; are you hungry?”

9109 signs yes and sets on the pellets with a will. The tightness is Grey’s chest loosens. With Larkin here, the situation doesn’t seem as irreparable.

There’s a lot that can’t be communicated. Harmonius has a transceiver so can hear 9109, but his StanG is limited; Larkin’s is fluent but she can’t hear 9109, while 9109 has no English module and can only speak StanG and SGSL. Grey is unnecessary and stands awkwardly off to the side while they talk, taking the opportunity to calm down.

Finally, they regroup at Grey’s car and pull Bob in on speakerphone.

“Okay,” Harmonius says, blowing his nose, “as far as I can tell, 9109 never felt it was lying. That doesn’t make it or my reading accurate, though, especially not today. It says that it got kidnapped to put pressure on the construct rights group it heads on Fluji Alpha. I don’t know nothing about that.”

“But I do, and it tracks,” Bob says. “While you guys were talking, I did some digging through the League public news and patent databases, and I found a few things. You were on the right track, Grey—Construct Deconglom is an anti-government construct rights organization, which 9109 is high up in. It’s been declared a terrorist group by the Fluji Alpha conglomerstate.”

“It didn’t mention that,” Harmonius said.

“I’ll bet, but listen to this: the big cheese responsible for the declaration is Apur Aimeh, who runs the Apur gene-property company when she isn’t doing politics and recently patented a 5447 transceiver-inhibitor collar that matches what Grey described to me. What do you want to bet that Apur, or one of her people, is our mysterious VIP? And that’s why 9109 can’t broadcast.”

“Huh,” Larkin remarks. “Grey, your comboy is good.”

“Ha! I’m a lot of things,” Bob says, in a tone that Grey can’t help but react to. She only hopes that Harmonius is too stopped up to notice. “Unfortunately, I don’t know Fluji conglomerstate politics, and the translations I get are garbage, so I can’t say how valid the terrorist claims are.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Grey says. “USA has no agreements with Fluji Alpha.”

“Still, if 9109’s violent, that complicates things,” Larkin says. “Bob, exactly what kind of terrorists are these people called?”

“Uh.” Rustling paper. “Fiduciary.”

Larkin and Grey relax a little. “Small mercies,” Larkin breathes. “It means they’re a threat to Apur’s bottom line, Bob—and hopefully with lawyers or copyright battles, not pipe bombs, because 9109’s emergency beacon didn’t just notify Apur’s people. 9109’s crew is coming through the big chain in about an hour, and they are going to be damn unhappy that we’re holding their leader, who’s been stripped of flight, adapt-tech, language modules, and slapped in a broadcast-blocking collar that likely only Apur herself can open. I need to talk them down, and thank Jesus, 9109 is willing to work with us.”

“It just wants to go home, get real food, and go back to work,” Harmonius says with a sniffle. “Unfortunately, whatever y’all end up doing, I can’t be there to translate. I had Darlene’s bug yesterday, missed the big meeting, so I’m locked in today. I can’t miss it, especially since I’m here on the down-low.”

Larkin pats his arm. “You done good, Harm. But before you head on back: do we all agree that kidnapping your political-economic opponent, pretending it’s your property, losing it, and then lying about it to send us slave-catching—which we famously don’t do—is bullshit?”

“Yup,” Harmonius says. “Policy couldn’t be clearer. Whatever 9109’s job is, it’s a fugitive construct fleeing ownership, it’s on free land, and it doesn’t want to immigrate. It wants to go home. You ask me, let it; violent or not, it’ll be off our hands, and Fluji Alpha’s not our problem; it’s not like we’re allies.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Bob says. “I’m in. To hell with these people.”

Grey nods in agreement. She owes this to 9109, after treating it so shabbily.

“Good,” Larkin says, “we’re all on the same page, and I’m taking charge of this disaster. Let’s get 9109 off our planet. Harm, take some pills. Grey, tell me that mess you call a glove compartment has entry/exit forms.”

She does and starts digging for them.

“What about me?” Bob asks. “More important: what about Williamson?”

“We’ll handle him and his incompetence once 9109 is gone,” Larkin says. “We’ve got a rendezvous to make, and none of this would’ve happened if he’d done his damn job in the first place. Keep him out of our hair as long as you can.”

Bob’s voice gets tense. “I don’t know if I can; he’s raising the rafters.”

He doesn’t say it, but Grey hears it: since Bob is the lowest-ranked and the only one answerable to Williamson, he’s bearing the brunt of his captain’s frustration, even though none of this is Bob’s fault or doing.

“I’ll handle him,” Grey says, wielding the forms. “Send him to me.”

Bob sounds relieved. “Thanks, boss. I’ll do my best.” He hangs up.

“That’s me out too,” Harmonius says, wheeling off. “Good luck, y’all.”

Grey looks at 9109, who seems to be eating its weight in pigeon pellets. It can’t wear a seat belt, and this is her first time transporting a non-humanoid construct that didn’t bring its own car seat. She looks questioningly at Larkin, who looks indecisive; then they turn to 9109 and ask it.

It ends up riding on Larkin’s shoulder in the navigator’s seat, preening its feathers. No one protests; Grey knows just enough about bird++ body language to know that they put immense stock in altitude. It wants to be on the same level, equal to the humans it’s riding with, which seems only fair. Fortunately for them, Harmonius has sworn up and down that it doesn’t understand a word of English, so Larkin can talk through her plan without worrying how it’ll respond. Grey mostly nods; she needs to stay focused on driving and making their desert rendezvous.

They’re on the final leg on a bumpy cattle road when Williamson calls. Since Grey’s driving, Larkin picks up and puts him on speakerphone.

“Did you tell Doshi to waste my time?”

From the navigator’s seat, Larkin raises her eyebrows.

“Yes,” Grey says. She hates talking, and she’s sick of Williamson.

Williamson sputters. “Where’s the bird?”

“Taking care of it.” She’s Ops, not him. He doesn’t get to tell Grey her job.

Williamson changes gears. In an unctuous voice, he says, “Specialist Grey, this is a delicate diplomatic matter involving the future of our trade relations, and our VIP is a very important ally who has been nothing but honest. I worry your comboy’s intentionally misleading you.”

Grey’s wheel goes off the road and she has to brake. 9109 flutters but doesn’t fall. Larkin steadies it and puts a fist to her mouth as though to bite it.

“He’s been ducking my orders and wasting our time all day,” Williamson continues, “and I think that was his intention from the start. He wants us to fail, and whatever he’s told you, you’re still a good soldier—”

They don’t have time for this. “Bob’s fine. I will handle Apur Aimeh.”

“That name, which I can neither confirm nor deny—”

Larkin is tapping her watch with a pressing look, so even though Grey hates pulling this card, she repeats, “I will handle Apur Aimeh. Call Andersen if that’s a problem.”

“No, no, no, that won’t be necessary!” Williamson’s tone turns ingratiating. “Let’s not bother him with trivialities, okay? If you want the headache, it’s yours. Just don’t trust a wash hire. You might not like where it gets you.”

Grey gets Williamson off the line, but it takes long enough to put them behind schedule. When she finally gets them back on the road at speed, Larkin bursts out, loudly enough that 9109 jolts, “Son of a bitch. Trying to snow us… we don’t even trade with any damn peripherals! It’s why all we have are fizzy boxes! If we weren’t in such a damn hurry, I’d—”

The sky opens up with a tearing roar.

Larkin nearly has a stroke. “Shit! Shit! I am going to roast Williamson—I’m point; you’re backup! Avenge my ass if they decide to shoot me!”

Grey nods and nearly hits a cattle fence pulling over. As the ripper car lands, she dives for the gun rack.

“If I kick it, you can have my Barbarian Barbara tapes,” Larkin says, and reaches for the door. She takes a deep breath, puts a calm mask over her face, then looks to 9109 to make sure it’s ready. It fluffs itself one last time, then assumes an upright, dignified posture and signs yes. She nods, then gets out of the car with a measured stride, looking serene, professional, and approachable.

Grey finds her rifle, scrambles to load it, and braces it against the window.

The ripper car sits in a cow pasture, an unblemished white ellipsoid despite the dust and dirt it’s kicked up. It’s large enough to hold half a dozen people—and if they have any sense, there are at least four inside: a negotiator, a medic, a (getaway) driver, and backup. No weapons are visible, but they’re surely there. A speaker crackles.

“Release 9109,” it says in genderless, ageless StanG.

9109 hops off of Larkin’s shoulder and struts to the ripper car, then starts dancing hands-free SGSL. Larkin lets it talk and stops at the cattle fence, holding up her empty hands—not a fighting position, not a defensive position. When 9109 finishes talking and turns to look at her, she says in her clear, soothing river voice, “My name is Ebony Larkin and I’m with Peripheral Immigration and Naturalization. I’m here to help you.”

9109 dances some more, but the ship shows no sign of movement. Grey flips her safety off.

“Remove the collar. 9109 is a free being.”

“I’m sorry. It’s gene-locked. We don’t have that technology.”

Silence.

From her position, Grey can see a trickle of sweat on the back of Larkin’s neck, but it doesn’t show in her voice or body language. “We have a long tradition of giving refuge to constructs seeking freedom. 9109 is free and wants to go home, so we return it to you.”

“Why is our leader collared and deprived of its adapt-tech?”

“That is a good question that we are still investigating.”

“You don’t know.”

“No.”

Silence. 9109 dances. Grey can count Larkin’s breaths.

The ship comes open with a hiss, showing a white-haired human woman, unarmed. She rushes to 9109, who leaps up into her hands, and they confer.

Whatever 9109 says, it’s apparently good enough for the woman. She turns to them both and bows, cautious.

“My thanks for your assistance in liberating our leader,” she says in crisp StanG. “We—”

Grey’s phone rings. She bites her tongue and ignores it.

The phone rings, rings, and finally goes to voice mail, only to start ringing again. When she glances at the screen, it says BOB.

She looks at the Construct Deconglom negotiator, then at Larkin. They’re talking, sitting together on the dirt across from each other—a peaceful position, and Larkin’s relaxed. Grey puts the safety back on and answers her phone. “What?”

“It’s the VIP,” Bob says in a subdued voice. “She wants to talk to you.”

If he’s calling now, it’s because he has no choice.

Fine, then. This whole case is only messy because some conglomerstate official insisted on bringing a trafficked construct here for some unfathomable reason. If that official wants to talk, then Grey has some choice words for her, and unlike Bob, she can get away with being rude and impolitic. “Put her on.”

There’s a beep. Bob says, “Hello, ma’am?”

Apur (or whoever she is) must have gotten her hands on an English translation module, a good (expensive) one; she speaks fluently. “Yes, hello, you tedious incompetent. Is this the one in charge?”

“Yes,” Grey says. “Specialist Grey. Operations.”

“So I hear. I have it on authority that you are my obstruction. It would be a terrible shame if our relationship were to be irreparably damaged. We do not trade with enemies.”

Fluji Alpha has never traded with them. “Okay,” Grey says.

“I insist upon recouping my property. The collar is a fresh prototype, highly valuable; where is it?”

Grey eyes the ripper car. It’s opened up, and a white-haired girl is scanning 9109’s collar. Grey keeps her rifle where it is but relaxes her grip. “Gene-locked. Can store it for you a week; then it’s ours.” Presuming the girl can get it off.

“Have you no way to bring it into communal airspace for me?”

Bob makes a stifled noise—a snort, maybe. Grey says, “No.”

“And my pet?”

Grey prefers SGSL to StanG, but she can say, “9109 is not your pet,” with construct-object and person-free suffixes to make the meaning clear.

Cold silence. Then Apur says, in English, “Your accent shames you. I wish to speak with your superior, Williamson.” When thwarted, go up the chain.

“Williamson isn’t my superior,” Grey says in English. Williamson coughed up jurisdiction to her, in her mind, and she’s not giving it back, nor does she want to interrupt Andersen’s Thanksgiving for this nonsense. When she checks her watch, second shift is just starting. “Bob, second shift Comm captain?”

“Bernadette Vega.”

Good. Vega is fresh, rested, and an old horse fluent in StanG. “Transfer.”

“She’s on another call,” Bob chirps. “Hold please!”

Apur says something indignant, cut off midway through.

“There, that should hold her,” Bob says. “Considering everything, I thought you might want to warn Bernadette first.”

“Thank you,” Grey says. “I’ll hold.”

“No need; I lied. Transferring.”

And before Grey can think of a response, she hears, “Vega here,” and has to stitch more words together.

Apur fights kicking and screaming every step of the way, but Williamson handed the “headache” to Grey, which means that once Vega’s in charge, there’s nothing he or Apur can do. 9109 is free, safe, and soon gone, taking the newly patented collar with it. Vega, unsurprisingly, sides with Larkin, Grey, and Bob; PIN policy regarding fugitive constructs is ironclad. Grey spends the rest of the shift doing the paperwork with Bob.

All of that is satisfying, however tedious. Far more frustrating and time-consuming is dealing with Williamson, who reacts as though they’ve created a massive diplomatic incident and seems dead set on painting Bob as some villainous mastermind who spearheaded the whole thing (not Larkin) and was rude to Apur (not Grey) for some nebulous reason. Grey, Larkin, and Vega back Bob up, but they shouldn’t have to, and Williamson doesn’t get reprimanded, which is disturbing. The whole thing has a surreal, unpleasant taste to it, like something’s missing. Grey never does find out why 9109 was brought to Vago in the first place, or even if the VIP truly was Apur, and it bothers her.

All the absurdity does keep her from remembering the holiday… until the shift ends. Then it all crashes down on her at once.

She thinks about her empty apartment, the can of soup, bag of salad, and TV awaiting her. She thinks about being alone.

She decides to work out instead.

The PIN gym is empty after 4PM on Thanksgiving, but she can at least see and hear her second-shift coworkers going about their business outside. When she changes into her gym clothes, she even allows herself the treat of her Barbarian Barbara T-shirt, which Larkin gave her. Normally she wouldn’t dare, since it’s a women’s show and she doesn’t want anyone to wonder, but just for this evening, with nobody around to see her, she needs this little bit of herself.

Exercise usually makes her feel good, but nothing can stop the burgeoning awareness of what the rest of the day will hold. Eventually, she has to leave. Eventually, she has to go home.

Then her stomach gurgles, and she realizes that she’s starving. Glad for the excuse to stay longer, she decides to visit the break room fridge. For a moment, she considers changing, but the building is half-deserted and it’s too early for the second shift dinner rush, so finally she goes as is.

She’s rooting around in the overstuffed freezer, someone’s ice cream in her hand, when she hears, “That’s not yours, lady.”

Grey nearly jumps out of her skin. She spins and there’s Bob, looking drained and exhausted… and now deeply chagrined.

“Shit, sorry, I—” but he just putters out.

Grey stays frozen. What’s given her away? Her shirt? Her body language? She wasn’t paying attention; did she slip? (And at the same time, she doesn’t want Bob to be sorry, doesn’t want him to correct himself, doesn’t want to hear anything about what he thinks she really is.)

But Bob doesn’t do any of that. He just shakes his head like he’s throwing off a bad dream and continues, “I don’t care if you are senior specialist with honors; Darlene will have your ass for stealing her ice cream.”

Grey isn’t stealing it, but her throat is locked, so she just stands there with it. (Now that she’s looking, she sees the label: DARLENE’S! CURSED! DO NOT EAT!) What is Bob doing here at this hour? Doesn’t he have people to be with?

As though to answer her, he goes over to the Lost and Found board on the wall and pulls his keys off the tack. He pockets them, looking at her now like he’s never seen her before.

“That’s a good act you have,” he says. “I’m impressed.”

Grey’s heart starts pounding.

“You’re not stupid; you just want everyone to think you are. Why?”

Grey relaxes. Oh. That. That’s fine, though it’s still closer than is safe. (Because she doesn’t want him close, doesn’t want him—)

But it’s been a bad day, so she replies, “It gets to you. I like that.”

Bob’s eyes spark. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he says, leaning against the door and crossing his arms. “A sense of humor, and you’re a better troll than I am.”

Grey doesn’t know what that means, but she likes the way Bob says it, and she likes the way he’s smiling at her. He has a wicked smile.

Oh no. This was why she was trying to drive him off. He thinks she’s a man, this is a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell workplace, fizzies work in the next building over, and she’s too drained to redirect well. She tries to shutter her expression, pull back, but Bob just chuckles, approaches until he’s only a couple feet away, pinning her between him and the open fridge. He’s a foot shorter than her, not powerfully built, but Grey’s neck prickles anyway.

“I like that. Makes you interesting.” He reaches forward, plucks the ice cream out of her hand with a flourish, leans close, and purrs in a velvet voice, “I like getting to you too, boss.”

Grey’s mouth goes dry.

Bob pulls out of Grey’s personal space and turns his attention to the ice cream label. “So,” he says in his normal voice, “is it working?”

It’s late. Grey’s hungry, tired, and not looking forward to spending Thanksgiving on the couch with the television. So she says, “Yes.”

Apparently Bob doesn’t expect that; he looks up, startled for a moment, then laughs. He has a good laugh. “Good!” he says.

He leans past Grey to put the ice cream back into the freezer but doesn’t touch her. “Don’t eat this crap,” he says. “It’s low-fat. Take me home, and I’ll feed you Thanksgiving dinner. You like pie? I’ll make pie.”

She should say no. This is a bad idea.

She says yes.

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