Chapter 2, "Day -30", Scene 3 = "Step toward the Future," Section 8

Doyle Phoebe Heejanus

Her connection to the can-see died before Phoebe could withdraw. She brooded before the foilscreen, her face slack, unable to match her despair. She didn't know which was worse: the Partner plot against her, or the fact that she had to help justify her own dismissal — and the end to any meaning in her life.

A sigh led to random movement, torso, shoulders, arms. Roused, her hands lifted out of habit, set aside her darts, then poked into the keyspace to release the cloak that kept her workstation isolated. The machine pinged immediately. Phoebe refocused on the foilscreen. A queue of messages unfolded down its center. At the top, blinking with Consortium priority-override, a request stated that Dyr Kanpachiro Nitsta wanted a meeting/will-be-seen. Reluctantly, she tapped the foilscreen to enable the connection.

Dyr Kanpachiro looked back at her, his real face, as stated by the meeting request — not a virtual composite like the Partners had just presented. He smiled and said, "Doyle Phoebe."

"Dyr Kanpachiro."

"Call me 'Kanpachiro' please."

"Kanpachiro." Sudden suspicion made her go on. "Were you watching the meeting?"

"At Jac Irwin's request," he defended himself. "I'd like to get started on the proposal. Can you send me what you've found out about the competition so far?"

Phoebe dropped her gaze. So it began already: if she resisted, insubordination would pry her loose; if she complied, facts, either distorted or invented, would flow from her own efforts and settle judgment on her. Resigned for the moment, she worked her fingers inside the keyspace. "Yes."

"Can you find a place for me to stay while we're working on this?"

She lifted a heavy head. "Kanpachiro, I've got a job to do here. I can't —"

"Yes, yes, I know." He grinned and his high cheeks pinched his eyes. "I won't be using much of your time." He paused. "A little more, at the beginning, I suppose."

Unweighed, words snapped out of her mouth. "I'm going to make you sweat for it." Like he was just another sea-gull, not a particularly deadly one.

"Fair enough."

Phoebe waited. Kanpachiro kept his grin.

She wanted the meeting over. "When will you be here?"

"I'll fly over from Byukan-Hamil late-day."

"I'll send you directions to your dwelling."

He nodded. "I'm looking forward to seeing you again, Phoebe." His picture flicked away, leaving an after-image of the Mirnaya-Direvnya logo.

A wail of frustration lifted Phoebe from her chair. She stumbled on its wheeled pedestal, touched her desk for balance, snarled at the chair, kicked it out of the way. Jangling, it spun across the office.

Bristles jabbed her fingers. Without looking, she clenched her fist — around darts. All three rolled in her grip, their hard barrels and prickly fletching fighting her. She rotated her shoulders, right one surging, left one plunging, and threw the darts away from her as hard as she could. Nearly every joint in her upper body protested the move. She gritted her teeth in return.

Abruptly, her workstation pealed, a carillon of applause. Phoebe flinched, then spun toward her storage wall. The target jutted with a cluster of darts, two in the bull's-eye, one next to it.

Surprise held her for a moment, until laughter gushed up from her belly, washed through her insides, deluged her mind. Delightful seconds of the cleansing froth left her wet-eyed and breathless. Still smiling, she gasped and opened her mind for a defining thought.

Her own words weighed in: "I'm going to make you sweat for it."

Nobody was going to take her from her job! Or her job from her! Not that she didn't believe in the good she did for her combine and her direvnya, because she did. Not that she didn't savor and cherish the work itself, because she did. No, losing the job would carve a void inside her, even more profound than the one Niger gouged when he fled Ibrahim's death. Life without her role as chief was — she searched for the precise word — undefined. She would not go there again.

Please give me some Feedback.