Black Marion

20

Alex had been right about the Nnamani code.

By mid-August, she had unscrambled the first line of script by reverting a five-dimension geometric distortion to its original three-dimensional state. A program which could be read could be dismantled, and though the full script would take months to decipher, years to undo, that pivotal success intoxicated her to the point of slipping on her feet.

Sunday morning, she remembered what she had said to Vaughn. The warmth of his presence had been alluring, stability among these years of desperation and uncertainty. The taste of his lips, the security of his hands—how easily Alex had fallen, if only for a moment. Regret harrowed her through the week, thinking of the disappointment in those generous eyes.

Wednesday, Demari stopped by the kitchenette while Alex was stirring some warm tea. The director kept tabs on her often, not out of suspicion, but concern. Her appointment to the highest post of CyberSec Development had been determined by the Assembly vote—of which Alex's father played no small role. Old friends, those two. Which made him partial to Alex by proxy, sometimes a little more than she was comfortable with.

This day, the director stirred his coffee with a keen eye on Alex.

"Are you working on anything important at the moment?" he said out of the blue.

Alex looked up from the timer on the tea boil. Her mind scrambled to come up with a rationale for the question and an appropriate response. "Just some debugging for Melbon. Do you need something, sir?"

"Take the rest of the day off."

Alex blinked. Her eyes slid to the digital numbers on the nearby wall. 1:16—early.

"Sir?"

"You've got a temperature. Haven't you noticed? I can tell just by looking at you."

Alex touched her forehead. True, she had been feeling peculiar today, but as far as her fingertips could tell, she was simply a bit warmer than usual. A product of body-wide heat, perhaps, making abnormalities difficult to distinguish. "I think I'm okay."

"Go home," said Demari, crossing his arms. "Even if it's not a fever, you look like you could use the rest." He paused. "When was your last check-up with the doctor?"

"First weekend of the month."

"Nothing out of the ordinary?"

"Nothing, sir."

Demari sighed. "Alex, you put yourself together well. But I know what fatigue looks like, and while I'm glad to hear it's not medical, I need you to take better care of yourself. It's been showing this past month. I'm worried, you know."

Alex nodded. In fact, this past month had been her best in years—but in her absorption with the successful decryptions, she had perhaps neglected to hide the stray hairs and shadowed eyes and distracted stares as well as usual. Still, she needed to keep the director at arm's length, no matter the man's good intentions. "I suppose I've been feeling a little more desperate lately. I'm sorry that it's affected my work..."

"Your work is fine," said Demari. "We didn't expect to be any farther than we are at this point in the project. There are still two more years before we hit the reassessment cap. So I need you to focus on your health for now, okay? I can't have you burning out before you've made Senior."

There was a lightness to his tone, a genuine smile. Alex mirrored it faintly and nodded.

"Thank you, sir. I'll see you tomorrow, then."

She spent the remainder of the day parsing through a segment of the Nnamani root code at home, until, evening time, a headache pulled her out of the network. It was a fever after all: curious, as she hadn't been ill in years despite her neglect. But her thoughts had been a mess for days since that night in Imperial Tower, and she couldn't get her words, that kiss, all those implications out of her head.