Page 46 of Breaking Point
Brice held up his hand.“She doesn’t want me near her.With reason.”
“Because you signed the charges?”Todd shot back.“How deeply was Zana Magro’s knife buried in you when you signed it?”
Brice found he was sitting in the spindly chair, with no clear memory of having sat down.“Deep,” he said.
Devar nodded.“My mother might spit at you because of that.Yet if she truly hated you, she wouldn’t bother spitting at all.”He moved over to the wall and pulled the other chair over to the table and sat in it.He laced his hands together in front of him.“She’ll need you.”
Brice let out a gusty sigh.The headache retreated.A little.“I’ll tell you what I told her.I have a feeling that you might believe me.I’m watching for a way out of this.”
Devar considered him.“Youarewalking a thin line, aren’t you?If Magro finds out you’re making a break for it, she will…well, let’s say I think she is responsible for more dead bodies than I’m supposed to have produced.”
“Murder isn’t her style.”
“Metaphorical murder.If you have no money, no assets, no friends and no life, you might as well be dead.”
The entire ship will hate your guts by the time I’m through with you.You won’t find work anywhere on the ship.You and everyone in your life will be shunned.I will make sure of it.Brice shivered.He could hear her voice as clearly in his mind as when she had spoken the words.
He met Devar’s gaze.“I’ll be careful.”
“Good,” Devar said and sat back, apparently satisfied.
“Well…” Brice reached for his cane.
“Where are you going?”Devar said sharply.“I get thirty minutes.I haven’t spoken to anyone in ten days.Sit down.”
Brice sat.“I’m not a good conversationalist.”
“Haven’t you heard?I suck at social skills, too.Tell me anything.Everything.Tell me about your time as a Void Hound.”
“I didn’t think you liked tankball.”
“I like competency, in all its forms.And by all accounts, you were very, very good.So tell me.”
Baffled, Brice raked his fingers through his hair.Then he settled the cane against his knee once more and began to talk.
•
When he emerged from the gates into the Aventine, forty minutes later, Bryce felt as though a small ice age had passed by.This wasn’t the same ship, anymore.
He didn’t think he had ever believed that Devar Todd was guilty.Now he knew in his bones that Devar had not killed fifty-three people for the sake of profits via a rigged game.
The man hadn’t proclaimed his innocence.He hadn’t pleaded with Brice to withdraw the charges.He had been clear-eyed about the political forces amassing against him.
And Brice had to admire a man who could calmly make arrangements for the people he loved, when facing such overwhelming odds.
Brice felt pathetic in comparison.He had been whining about a headache.
He realized he was thumping the cane into the floor as he walked.Taking it out on plasteel.
He went back to the office.He could feel the pall of the place trying to pull him back under, to sink into the morass of self-pity once more.He shrugged it off.He hadn’t realized until just now how much he hated the building, his office and all it represented.
He pushed that knowledge aside, too.Instead, he rolled up his mental sleeves and got to work.He had a lot to catch up on.He first went to the Forum for messages, and found his attention snagged there.Not only had his personal messages built up, but the community message boards were exploding with debate the likes of which he hadn’t seen since… As he scrolled through and flipped pages, he realized that he had never seen the ship this roiled, thisvocal.
All over Devar’s fate.
Brice spent three hours combing through the Forum, reading messages and comments, polemics and essays, videos and more.
He sat back, his gaze drawing to the view through the window.
