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Inside, Jahns found Bernard waiting on them, a look on his face like he’d sed sour fruit juice A conversation between several IT workers standing off to the side quickly silenced with their entry, leaving Jahns little doubt that they’d been spotted on the way up and expected

"Bernard," she said, trying to keep her breathing steady She didn’t want hi by on her way up fro deal

"Marie"

It was a deliberate slight He didn’t even look Marnes’s way or acknowledge that the deputy was in the roon these here? Or in the conference roo for the contract with Juliette’s na at, Marie?"

Jahns felt her temperature rise The cluster of workers in silver IT ju at?" she asked

"You think this power holiday of yours is cute? Your way of getting back at ot servers, Marie--"

"Your servers have their full allocation of power," Jahns re coher, we’ll be ra dohich we’ve never had to do!"

Marnes stepped between the two of theaze on Bernard

"Call off your little shadow here," Bernard said

Jahns placed a hand on Marnes’s arm

"The Pact is clear, Bernard It’s ning off on each other’s--"

"And I told you this girl froot the job," Marnes said, interrupting Jahns noticed his hand had fallen to the butt of his gun She wasn’t sure if Bernard noticed or not, but he fell silent His eyes, however, did not leave Jahns’

"I won’t sign it"

"Then next time, I won’t ask"

Bernard smiled "You think you’ll outlive another sheriff?" He turned toward the workers in the corner and waved one of them over "Why do I somehow doubt that?" The worker approached Bernard nodded to the young n whatever she needs, I refuse to Make copies Take care of the rest" He waved his hand dismissively, turned and looked Marnes and Jahns up and down one final tie, their positions, so "Oh, and top off their canteens and see that they have food enough to stagger back to their hos to wherever it is they belong"

And with that, Bernard strode off toward the barred gates that led into the heart of IT, back to his brightly lit offices where servers hu air like the heat of angered flesh as capillaries squeezed, the blood in the to a boil

8

The floors flew by faster as they approached home In the darkest sections of the staircase, between quiet floors of people hunkered down and awaiting a return to nor between two cli each other while their other hands slid up the cool steel of the rails

Jahns only let go sporadically to check that her walking stick was secure against her back, or to grab Marnes’s canteen fro each other’s water, it being easier to reach across than around one’s own back There was a sweetness to it as well, this carrying the sustenance another needed, this being able to provide and reciprocate in a perfectly equitable relationship It was a thing worth dropping hands for Momentarily, at least

Jahns finished a sip, screwed on thechain, and replaced it in his outer pouch She was dying to know if things would be different once they got back They were only twenty floors away An i that could slip aithout noticing And as they arrived, would faht feel hosts becos, but talked of trivialities instead When would Jules, as she insisted they call her, be ready for duty? What case files did he and Holston have open that needed tending to first? What concession would they make to keep IT happy, to cals’s disappointht one day preside over as judge?

Jahns felt butterflies in her stos Or perhaps it was the nerves of all she wanted to say, but couldn’t These topics were as nurains of dust in the outside air, and just as likely to dry hernoises at her back, her sto doard the conclusion of their journey, an adventure that had been a cole" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>