It’d been a gamble, sending a message through Able, but it was one she’d felt she had to take. If North was in on the plot, they would know soon enough. And they’d already done everything they could to stack the odds in their favor.
“One incoming,” Cass heard Wick say over internal comms. “It’s him.”
A minute later, the front doors slid smoothly open, and a hulking figure stood in the entrance, silhouetted by the street lights behind him. He stepped cautiously over the threshold, out of the shadows and into the softer lights at the entrance. It was North. He looked off to his right as he entered, lowered his head and squinted, trying to force his eyes to adjust as he peered into the darkness. But as he scanned back to his left, his eyes quickly locked on Cass’s, drawn no doubt by their soft electric glow.
“Lady Cass,” he said, with a slight bow. North seemed surprised to see her. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” He stepped forward.
“That’s close enough,” Cass said as North reached the edge of the light, near the first row of tables. The doors slid closed and the locking mechanism clicked audibly.
“Front’s clear,” Wick said.
“Street’s clear,” Sky said.
“Rear’s good,” Finn answered.
Cass didn’t answer. Just kept her eyes on North. He remained at the entrance, hands folded in front of him. Usually quietly confident, he seemed instead tense and uncertain. Maybe just a man awakened in the middle of the night. Or maybe a man fearing the unraveling of a plan. Cass let him wait in silence, knowing the less she led him, the more likely he was to reveal his own thoughts.
“A bit late for tea,” North said. Cass held herself still, her eyes locked on his. An odd benefit of her altered eyes; he knew without a doubt that she was watching him, but couldn’t read her expression.
“Are the others joining us?” he asked.
“We’ll see,” she answered.
“May I sit?”
“If you must.”
Cass waited while North moved to the closest table and pulled a chair out for himself. He sat with his hands in his lap, under the table.
“Hands on the table,” Cass said.
“What’s going on, Cass?”
“Hands on the table,” she repeated. His shoulders sagged and he sighed. Then he raised his hands slowly in an exaggerated motion and held them up and open, and then placed them flat on the table in front of him.
“You’re usually more hospitable,” North said.
“You never really know people, do you?”
“It’s been a long few days, Lady. I have neither the energy nor the patience for games.”
“No games,” Cass said. “But I do have some questions.”
“They couldn’t wait for morning?”
“No.”
“Enough, Cass. I assume from the time and location of this meeting that you’ve learned something significant. And I assume from the fact that we’re the only two here that it’s something you don’t want the others to know.”
“What makes you think we’re the only two here?”
North’s eyes narrowed and his head started to turn slightly, but he stopped himself, kept his eyes on hers. She wondered just how much of her he could make out in the darkness.
“Have you spoken with Aron tonight?” she asked.
North shook his head. “Should I have?”
“How about Connor?”
His brow furrowed. “Not since we were with him together. Did they discover something?”
“They’re dead.”
His face passed through a range of emotion in seconds, from confusion to disbelief to shock. It all looked genuine to Cass. “Who… what happened?” he asked.
“They tried to take Wren.” Another wave of emotion.
“Tried to take him? Where? I don’t understand.”
“This is the first you’ve heard of it?”
For a brief moment, North didn’t seem to understand the question. When he grasped the implication, he became visibly angry and stood up.
“I have pledged my life to serve your son,” he said. “And I have served faithfully, at times to my own great pain.”
“Easy there, partner,” came a voice behind him. His eyes went wide, but he didn’t turn. “Why don’t you sit back down and keep your hands on the table like the good lady asked.”
North slowly lowered himself back into his chair, revealing Gamble’s petite frame behind him, her jittergun aimed squarely at the back of his head.
“I take this treatment as a great personal offense,” he said. “I have been nothing but a friend to you and your son.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Cass said.
“If I had known anything about a plan to take Wren from you, I would’ve stopped it myself.” He glowered at her from across the room, seemingly more angry at the questioning of his honor than over the deaths of Aron and Connor. “And if what you say is true, then I do not blame you for taking their lives.”
“It is true. It’s why I’m here, instead of at the compound. And it’s why I asked you to come, North. I don’t know who else we can trust.”
“This is trust?” he said, waving his hand vaguely around and ending by pointing at Gamble behind him.
“No. But it’s smart,” Cass answered. Then, “You can bring the lights up.”
A moment later, the lights came up in the room, and North’s eyes darted first to the back corner of the room, then to the left, where Able and Swoop were standing.
“Seems excessive for one man,” he said.
“We weren’t sure you’d come alone.”
“The message said to.”
“Can I offer you a drink?” she asked.
“Are they really dead?”
Cass nodded. North looked down at his hands on the table, curled them into fists, and then stretched his fingers out wide. “Then yes, I would like a drink.”
Before Cass could stand up, the door to Mister Sun’s room swung open and he came out with a little bow, motioning for her to keep her seat. She chuckled at that, and suppressed a smile as Mister Sun disappeared to the back room. Gamble holstered her pistol and sat on a table, legs dangling like a kid.
A few moments later, Mister Sun returned, carrying a tray with cups and a pair of bottles, which he placed on Cass’s table. Cass motioned to North, and he joined her. He poured for himself from one of the bottles, and offered some to her, which she declined. They sat in silence for a few minutes while North sipped and processed.
“What was their plan?” he said. “What were they hoping to accomplish?”
“They wanted him to use the machine.”
North watched her for a long moment, and then took another sip of his drink. He shook his head as he set the cup back on the table.
“No. Before. Let’s start at the beginning.”
It started as a flutter in the corner of Painter’s mind. Something alien and unwanted, like a nightmare he fought to forget, all the while feeling the more he struggled to ignore it, the more certain it seemed he would recall it in all its vivid horror. Yet worse. Painter couldn’t quite find a way to describe it even to himself. It was almost as if it was someone else’s nightmare was thrust into his own head. A flash of incoherent babble crackled through his mind, and he sat up violently on the floor.
But as quickly as it had come, it vanished, and his thoughts were clear once more. He checked the time. 01.47 GST. Maybe he’d started to doze off, and the turmoil of the day had bubbled through in an almost-dream. If there was another explanation, Painter couldn’t think of one. Even so, the feeling it left behind made him uneasy.