Page 79 of Chaos Theory
‘Can we go somewhere a bit quieter?’ Maeve says.
‘Let’s go to the Liffey,’ Shane says.
Maeve, Shane, JP, Trish, Sandra Smith, DC Jen and I all leave the party and go to the Liffey Room. It is dark. Shane turns on the lights.
‘Oh boy,’ Maeve says. ‘I don’t know how to begin.’
‘It’s okay,’ Shane says. ‘Whatever it is – it’ll be fine.’
‘Now that’s not necessarily the case,’ JP says. ‘Especially if Maeve has done something to upset Ron, by the sounds of it.’
‘Give the girl a chance,’ Trish says.
‘All right.’ JP folds his arms. ‘Proceed.’
‘Thank you,’ Maeve says. ‘So, the thing is – I’m just going to say it as simply as I can. Basically, Ron Tron doesn’t know – I mean,didn’tknow – that Kobi was here with us at Go Ireland.’
‘I don’t understand,’ JP says. ‘How is that possible?’
‘Because,’ Maeve says, ‘Josh didn’t tell him.’
‘What?’ DC Jen and Shane say the word at the same time.
JP turns to me: ‘Did you know about this?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Maeve, I am afraid there has been a mistake.’
‘There’s been a mistake, all right,’ Maeve says. ‘Several mistakes were made.’
‘I’m calling Ron right now.’ JP gestures as if to put his hand into a pocket but his hand simply moves through the air. He repeats the movement. ‘Trish, this is why I wanted pockets!’
‘Dogs don’t have pockets,’ Trish says.
‘Do you even have Ron’s number anyway?’ Maeve says.
‘Well, not his direct line, no.’
‘Exactly,’ Maeve says. ‘He only ever communicated with you via Josh, right? You never had any direct contact with Ron about Kobi?’
JP makes a fist and brings it down on a nearby table. A small part of me calculates that it could have made a loud bang were it not covered in fur. But most of my processors are busy computing this new data and the speculative scenario that Maeve is proposing.
‘I do not understand,’ I say. ‘What you are suggesting wouldrequire Josh to have practised deception with a large number of people.’
Is it possible that Josh has kept my current placement a secret from everyone at RoboTron? Why would he do this?
‘Why would Josh do this?’ I ask.
‘I’m sorry, Kobi,’ Maeve says. ‘I’ve thought about it, and my guess is that he was afraid of what might happen to you back at RoboTron after the incident at PHI. Maybe he thought we could help get you back on track before it was too late.’
‘What’s PHI?’ Trish asks.
‘PHI is the manufacturing facility where I fulfilled my last assignment,’ I provide.
‘Maeve, what do you mean by incident?’ Sandra Smith says. ‘I work in HR, remember. I know what “incident” is code for.’
‘What is it code for?’ I ask. I would welcome a conversation about code right now.
‘It means something bad happened,’ Sandra Smith says. ‘Did something bad happen?’
