Chapter 587 | We’ve All Been Genuflecting

Chapter 587: 587 | We’ve All Been Genuflecting

The fourth floor conference room smelled like fresh paint, which meant somebody had spent the weekend covering up whatever the last three weeks had done to the walls.

Imara got there eleven minutes early and took the chair closest to the window, because the window faced the Crucible and she wanted to look at it while people talked about it. The dome sat out past the eucalyptus line with scaffolding crawled up one flank and a hole in the northwest quarter that tarps had not managed to make small. Orange vests moved across the curve of it. Somebody’s crane arm swung a panel into place, slow as a held breath.

She put her right arm on the table and worked her fingers.

Thumb. Index. Middle. The ring finger got about eighty percent of the way to a fist before the tendon told her to stop being greedy, and the pinky did nothing at all, the same as yesterday, the same as the day before that. Voss said the median nerve was tracking. Voss said the word tracking like it was a promise and not a verb people used when they didn’t want to commit to a number.

Three weeks ago she had put three full charges into something that did not care, and then she had let a twenty-two year old with abandonment issues make her angry enough to reach, and that reach had cost her a forearm she was still learning to negotiate with.

The door opened. Grant Hollis came through it sideways, because Grant Hollis came through most doors sideways, and set a tray of coffee on the table like he was apologizing for the size of his own hands.

"Brought the good stuff from the annex. Not the faculty kitchen." He pushed a cup toward her without asking how she took it, because he already knew. "How’s the arm."

"Mine."

"That’s a better answer than last week." He dropped into a chair that took the weight without comment, which was more than most chairs on campus could claim. "Last week you said fine."

"Last week I was lying."

"I know. That’s why I asked again."

Sable Mercy came in behind him and was somehow already seated before Imara registered the door closing. That happened. It had happened for three years and Imara had stopped pretending it didn’t. Sable set a water bottle down, squared it against the table edge, and folded her hands.

"Steele."

"Mercy."

"You’re moving your fingers under the table. I saw it from the hall."

"You saw it from the hall."

"Yes." Sable’s dark eyes went to the arm, then back up, and there was nothing gentle in it and nothing cruel in it either. "Keep doing that. Every hour. It works."

Eli Morrow arrived with a stack of folders he did not need and a smile Imara had never once caught him faking. He took the seat beside Cole’s empty one, which he always did, which Imara had decided long ago was not a coincidence. He looked grey around the eyes. He always looked grey around the eyes on Tuesdays and nobody said anything about it, by unanimous silent agreement that had never required a vote.

"Imara." He touched the back of her chair as he passed, brief enough to be deniable. "Are you sleeping?"

"Are you?"

"Terribly. But I have an excuse and you don’t."

Isabelle Crane came in last of the early group and made the room feel like a set. She wore that deep purple domino mask she had not explained to anyone in four years, along with a blazer that cost more than Imara’s first car, and she scanned the seating like she was checking sightlines.

"Nobody’s taken the head of the table." She sounded delighted. "I love when we do that. It’s very revealing."

"It’s his chair," Grant said.

"It’s a chair, Grant. He chose it once and we’ve all been genuflecting at it since." She sat down across from Imara and propped her chin on one hand. "Steele. You look human again. Last time I saw you in a meeting you looked like a lawsuit."

"Thank you."

"That wasn’t a compliment, it was market analysis. You photograph better this week." Isabelle’s azure eyes went to the arm and stayed there a second longer than polite. "How much of that shows in short sleeves?"

"All of it."

"Good."

Imara looked at her.

"I mean it." Isabelle’s voice lost its performance layer, and underneath it was something flat and professional. "A burn that says a teacher stood between a monster and forty children is worth more than any statement this institution issues. Cover it in the spring if you want. Don’t cover it in December."

Garrison Mack came through the door then, and the room’s air pressure changed, because a man built like Garrison does that to rooms whether he intends to or not. He had a tablet in one hand and a print binder in the other, and he set the binder down hard enough to make Eli’s folders jump.

"Twenty-six contracts," he said, to nobody, to everybody. "We had fourteen. Now we have twenty-six. Four licensed Heroes on grounds at all times, minimum Rank B, on visible rotation. WARDEN pillars at every access point including the maintenance corridors, including the loading docks, including the door to the koi pond, which I was told was excessive and which I am telling you right now is not excessive."

"Good morning to you as well," Isabelle said.

"Eight hundred students re-enrolled biometrically over two days. Zero refusals. Twelve flags for follow-up." He dropped into a chair. "And the perimeter is now a problem I can describe in a sentence instead of a problem I can only describe in a prayer. So no, Crane, I will not be relaxing."

Imara liked Garrison. She had liked him since her first semester, when he had told her flat out that she ran her field sessions too hot and then had never once reported her for it.

Cole Dravid came in at eight fifty-eight.