Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Five, Part Two

 Notes: A little more conversation before we buckle down to business ;)

 Title: Cloverleaf Station: Chapter Five, Part Two

***

Chapter Five, Part Two

 

Kieron wasn’t expecting the answer to his “When do we start?” to be “Tomorrow,” but there it was. He blinked at Elanus, feeling thrown off-kilter. “What?”

“Tomorrow,” Elanus replied, a pleasant smile on his face. “Now that we’ve worked out our agenda, there are a few changes I need to make in the Lizzie—a little housekeeping, so to speak. Not to mention, I’ve been flying on next to no rest for the past hundred and eleven hours, and that’s a lot even for me. I need to catch up on my beauty sleep if I’m going to be as useful as I need to be.” He stood up, back to towering elegantly over Kieron in a second. For a guy who claimed to be tired, he moved like he had all the energy in the world. Tall, handsome, and full of life…it was like fate had reached out and dropped the guy of Kieron’s dreams into his lap.

Too bad he was such a fucking asshole.

“How long do you need?” Kieron asked, staring just past Elanus’s face.

“Aren’t you accommodating all of a sudden, Sparky?”

Kieron bristled. Was there no way to please this guy? “I can be something else real easy.”

“Oof, hey.” Elanus raised his hands in mock-surrender. “Don’t get me wrong, I like accommodating. It just doesn’t seem to be your style.”

“It’s how I get every time someone threatens me into compliance,” Kieron replied sweetly. “I like to lie low until I get a clear chance to stab them in the back or cut their throat. Not,” he added, “that I would do anything like that to you, boss.”

“Oh yeah? Are you sure of that?” Elanus looked at him a little more closely. “Kieron Carr…with that name, that carriage, I think odds are even that you come from the Hadrian colony.”

Kieron felt the blood drain out of his face even has his hand automatically reached for the knife it had taken him months to train himself out of keeping at his hip. Luckily, he didn’t need a knife to be taken seriously. He had Elanus bent back across the control station, one arm across his throat as the other hovered over potentially fatal pressure points, before the other man could finish the final syllable of colony.

“Whoa, whoa!” Elanus’s mock-surrender had transformed to a real one, his hands not trying to push Kieron away—that would be futile—but plainly open and vacant in his line of sight. “No harm, huh? No harm, it’s all right, I’m not an enemy. What am I going to do, report you? Who to? There’s no one left.”

“There are plenty of people out there who would pay a hell of a lot of credits to get their hands on me,” Kieron growled. “And you just happen to be able to pick out what I am? My file says—”

“Drifter, I know, I read it.” Elanus’s voice was astonishingly calm. “Drifters are the best designation for someone like you, aren’t they? Someone who’s been everywhere, influenced by everything…and I respect that, I do. I swear, on my baby’s life, I’m not here for you. It’s pure coincidence that I figured out what you are, and it’s only because I know someone else from the Hadrian colony.

“Someone alive!” he added with a wheeze as Kieron’s grip tightened. “A friend of mine, I swear it! I haven’t turned her in and I wouldn’t turn you in either.” His glittering gaze met Kieron’s as he said, with perfect earnestness, “No one deserves to be taken apart just for who they are. Not my baby, and not you. I’m no threat to you, Kieron. How dumb would I have to be, to threaten you right now? My life is literally in your hands.”

“Then why did you mention it at all?” Kieron asked, reason slowly coming back online in his brain as adrenaline stepped aside. “Why bother?”

“Because I find it hard to shut up sometimes,” Elanus replied. “I ramble to myself and everyone around me a lot, and things can slip out without me being aware of them. I’d rather get this out of the way now instead of during our mission, when it could cause a real problem.”

That was a good point. Kieron inspected Elanus’s face for any trace of dishonesty, monitored to his heartbeat and his other biometric tics, but there was nothing to suggest he was being anything but sincere right now. Slowly Kieron leaned back, removing his weight from Elanus’s body. The taller man closed his eyes for a long moment, then let out a gusty sigh and held out his hand.

“Help a guy up, huh?”

Kieron rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, you’re ridiculous,” he muttered, but he helped Elanus to his feet.

“Thanks, Sparky.” Elanus winked at him. “Trust me, your secret is safe.”

“Until you start rambling to someone else and slip up.” Ugh, that was a good point. Maybe Kieron should just…

“No, nope, I see your murder-hands getting twitchy, and no,” Elanus said sternly. “It’s only on my mind right now because you’re on my mind. Once we’re done here, and we never have to see each other again, it’ll fall right out of my mind. I generally don’t keep close track of things that aren’t immediately relevant to my life. If that’s not good enough for you, I’ll let you put a neural block in.”

That was a…decent solution. Not great—neural blocks weren’t invisible to a professional, and they weren’t foolproof either, but it was probably the best Kieron was going to get. He nodded and took a step back, and watched as Elanus’s shoulders dropped about an inch with newfound relief.

“Threatening the boss with death on the first day,” Elanus said, shaking his head as he walked out of the room. “You’re a firecracker, aren’t you, Sparky? I’m going to send you some specs for the Regen unit,” he added in a louder voice as he strode down the hall. “The changes are non-negotiable. Let me know if you don’t have any of the parts required, and I’ll see you in eight standard hours!”

Then he was gone, turning toward the hangar and out of Kieron’s line of sight. As soon as he vanished around the corner, Kieron stepped mechanically over to his chair and sat down in it, dropping his head into his hands.

Holy shit. He’d nearly murdered Elanus Desfontaines. Elanus Desfontaines, ridiculously wealthy inventor and entrepreneur, who also happened to be his boss. All because of…of…

No. He wasn’t going to let his mind go back to that place. He’d gotten out of Hadrian young, too young to get the full “benefit” of the genetic training and modification. He’d foolishly thought that because of his youth, and the fact that no one was supposed to have survived the Hadrian massacre, that he could keep his name. It wasn’t such a remarkable name, after all. Plenty of people had similar ones.

More the fool he.

His implant beeped with a new message. Kieron activated his internal viewer and opened the file. It was a blueprint for a Regen unit, only this one definitely had some non-standard additions. The upgrade to the health scanner alone…why did it have to be so specific? That was one of the great things about Regen—it healed broadly and perfectly, without needing to be directed. So why insert a program designed to limit its own potential?

Just do it. You’ve pissed the guy off enough for one day. Not to mention, Kieron needed some sleep too after such a concerted clusterfuck. An hour of unconsciousness should be enough for him—a luxurious amount of sleep for a Hadrian, honestly—but he was tempted to push it to two, just to put this day out of his mind for a little longer.

Work will help. Work always helped. Before heading for the Regen unit, though, he got his algorithms back up and processing the limited data that came in from Cloverleaf’s sensors. Every byte of refinement could make the difference between life or death out there.

And Kieron couldn’t die. Not yet. Not before he found Zakari.

After that? He’d have to wait and see.