Page 61 of Tell Me Why
Tell snorted.
There was a pause, then Tell sighed as though this should have been obvious to everyone.
“It’s not something they dohabitually, so you don’t have high usage. Your high-end customers are looking for something fun to do once a decade, something they haven’ttriedbefore. If you hired the right minds, you slip in and start selling things that no one has ever heard of. Test it right before it goes out, and you’re going to have vampires willing to pay whatever you ask for your next bit of cold flesh. It’s not abrute’sgame. It’s cunning and scientific and very careful.”
He was hooked.
Everyone in the room could see it but Daryll, the way his eyes went soft as he considered not just the money but theinfluencehe would get from it.
He was also dead.
This was… real. If someone wasn’t already doing it, the minute Daryll did do it, everyone else was going to try, and… it just made the problem worse. It was the kind of idea that couldn’t get out.
It made Tina frightened, that Tell had that kind of material just lying around in his brain.
Daryll nodded.
“So you’re telling me you know where to find men who can do that kind of work?” he asked. Tell nodded casually.
“I do,” he said. “And I know who would buy it.”
Daryll frowned, then nodded once.
“All right,” he said, rising. “I’ll give you thirty percent and your freedom at a year.”
Ayear.
Like it was nothing.
“I have to travel if this is going to work,” Tell said. “First you need product, and then I need to be out, talking to people about it. You can’t imagine that this is going to work with me penned up in a room upstairs.”
“She stays,” Daryll said, indicating Tina.
“She does not,” Tell answered, not even trying hard.
“How do I know you aren’t going to go running off to one of your buddies to compete with me behind my back?” Daryll asked.
“PutCrissyin charge of product development. I’ll help hire on the men who do this kind of thing, then she’ll be in charge of making to work. Neitheroneof us get involved with it. I trust her. You trust her. So she keeps the secrets. We do business.”
Daryll looked at Isabella.
“Fine,” he said. “Fine. Done.”
Tell sighed, rising to meet Daryll’s handshake.
“If it were worth it to me, I’d fight you over the money, but you clearly need it more, and Tina is getting tired. We start at dusk.”
“Yes,” Daryll said. “We start at dusk.”
Tina ‘slept’on the giant bed without much peace.
She could see how this was going to solve the immediate problems, but not how it was going to make anything better in the long run.
Tell was going to find the other players in the parts market who were spying on Isabella - there, Tina was as confident as she ever was - but they were going to stayhere, under Daryll’s roof, where they couldn’ttalk, where she couldn’tworkthe way she normally did, where it was just going to be… trotting along after Tell while he did all of the heavy lifting in his head.
Tell got up at dusk and was gone by the time Tina was out of bed, so she took her time, getting herself ready for the day. She found Isabella in her room when she came out of the bathroom, which was a bit unsettling, but at least it wasn’t boring.
“You’re to come with me,” Isabella said, and Tina nodded, feeling a sudden jolt of fear when she considered that this might be a double-cross, either from Isabella or Daryll, to take Tina and ship her off, remove Tell from his distraction, or prove that they weren’t afraid of him, or whatever else they might demonstrate.
