Aaron's Book of Secrets (Sleeping Dogs Lie, 1.5)

Chapter 6

Even though my afternoon was wasted, I was able to waste it usefully, if that makes any sense. I was at least able to contact everyone who would have been involved in the late night Med Tech equipment grab that had been my original plan before that foul-mouthed Feral beast came in and effectively took over my Kernel.

I was able to contact everyone but Gary, that is. But at the same time as my Kernel techs are walking out at the end of the day, he comes gliding in.

"Hey, no need to get up," he says as I stand to greet him. "I'm just here to make sure that Cage has been taken care of. Comm sent me." He gives me a wink. I hate it when people think their "winky-winky" will convey a whole treasure trove of information I'm automatically supposed to pick up on. Come on, Gary. That wink could mean anything from the fact that he's figured out that Sander and I are in cahoots, and it was Sander who sent him up here, all the way over to the other side of the coin, where it could mean that Gary's had some long-burgeoning man-crush on me and has finally decided to act on it. Frankly, I'd rather keep things on the Sander side of the coin, thank you very much.

I sit back down at my console. "Cage is down," I tell him, motioning toward the middle of the room. That surveillance monitor was the first thing I had shipped out the door. Now only the chair and my lead monitors with their corresponding keyboards and consoles are all that's left in there.

Gary leaves the middle of the room and sits down at the work station next to mine. "That girl shot for the General," he tells me quietly.

"And?" I don't know why people always insist on beginning a conversation with news they know I'm already aware of. Just get to the freaking point.

"Not one bullet outside the brain," he says.

"Terrific," I say. Now not only is she a towering intellectual threat, but she's also a documented, viable physical threat. In case they hadn't figured that out the moment she sank her dainty little fist into Rahm's nose and took him down. "What's he going to do with her?"

"I don't think he even knows yet. He's talking it over with the other Heads now. That's why the Comm sent me. You should really get over there and get yourself a piece of that action."

Son of a bitch. Allen has intentionally excluded me from that decision. Gary's right, if I can't get my two cents' worth in now, she'll be so far beyond anyone's reach that there won't be any hope of her leading even a quasi-normal life during her time here at the Hex.

I stand immediately, sending the chair I've been sitting in flying away backward.

"Hey, before you go, I brought you something fun!" Gary says.

"Jeeze-Louise, Gary!" I glance around into the rafters, where I know my own cameras are stashed. I take it too much for granted, the idea that there's no other surveillance in here. So do my people. "Put a sock in it, would you?"

He looks upward into the rafters uncertainly. "We took this off her when she came in. I haven't seen anything so nice in a while. Thought you'd like to add it to your personal collection. None of us can use it because it's not regulation, and if I turn it over to the Armory, they'll just strip it and use it for parts. Seems a shame." Behind his back, he hands me a gun and a couple of boxes of ammo. He's right, I do have a personal collection of weapons, but I like to keep them stashed in the dark down in the basement where my lab is.

"Gary, you are killing me," I tell him. Where am I gonna put this stuff up here?

"Take a look," he says. "You'll like."