He’d asked for this, and he was getting better, but he was starting to regret this course of action.
Panting, Felix managed to at least keep himself up on one knee, rather than flopping into the mat.
“Better. Quicker, though. If you can’t be quicker, block it. Expecting to dodge attacks is honestly a good way to get hit.
“Silly dear. Don’t worry, I’ll make it all better tonight.” Andrea was leaning over the top of him, her hands patting his shoulders.
“Yeah. Thanks. Did Lily tell you about tonight?”
“She did! I look forward to hearing how it goes from her later.” Andrea’s tail was swishing back and forth happily as she said it.
She was genuinely happy for Lily.
“By the way, I know I say this every time, but I appreciate the training. I know it isn’t easy to teach someone with little to no aptitude.” Felix groaned and got to his feet.
“Aptitude is merely a way to measure how quickly one learns something. In this case, you just need more time.” Andrea gave him a bright smile and then wandered off.
Victoria replaced her, holding out a wooden sword to him.
Felix sighed and took the sword from her hand.
“Training while tired—”
“I know, I know. Training while tired is more difficult, but doesn’t hinder learning.” Felix grumped and then fell back into the neutral pose she’d beaten into him days previous.
Her training blade came up into the same pose, then darted forward.
She’d done that to him almost every time, forcing him to expect an attack immediately every time they started.
Managing to get his blade up in the appropriate deflection, he stepped in and struggled to bring his weapon across as quickly as he could.
Victoria was gone before he even finished the block, having stepped backward out of his range.
“Good. Now, let’s start,” Victoria said with a sickening amount of enthusiasm.
Victoria did much the same as Andrea had, beating him forwards and backwards across the mat. Giving him a number of bruises and welts with each pass.
Eventually, Victoria released him from his hell and sent him off to the medical room.
Bruises and welts were fine, but there was no sense in having them beyond the original lesson if you didn’t have to.
Felicia’s machines did a great job of getting a person back to normal for most anything.
Especially since he couldn’t do a damn thing to himself. It always ended up coming back to that.
The inability to modify his own parameters. To upgrade himself so easily as he did others.
After the medical fixup, and a quick snack, Felix was the first person to the department head meeting.
He normally was. It gave him some time to refine his agenda and get everything laid out how he wanted it.
Before he even had a chance to start, Kit came in.
“Good. I was hoping to catch you alone,” she said, dropping down into a chair directly in front of him.
Felix could only nod his head, not even bothering to open his terminal. Instead, he folded his hands in front of him and looked to the telepath. “What can I do for you?”
“Lily told me about Wraith and Smith. I’m not… really sure this was the right path.”
“Alright, what options were you considering instead?”
Kit blinked and then looked to the table. “Other options? I mean, we could have just waited, couldn’t we?”
“Could we have?”
“Well, er… yes. Yes, we could have.”
“Okay, what are our finances?”
“Our finances?”
“If you’re confident in our ability to wait, then clearly our finances are good. What are our finances?”
“They’re… no, they’re not good. Unless something changed, we’d barely have enough capital to pay our bills on time. Not including Dimitry’s loan is coming due.”
“Okay, if our finances aren’t good, and we’d be in trouble soon, what other options did we have available?”
“I… don’t know. But we didn’t have to kill Smith!”
“No, we didn’t. Yet as I’ve been directing your own mind to the problem, I could not myself find another answer.”
“Killing someone isn’t an answer!”
“It is when they’re not a good person, and are demanding that I prostitute you out to service them. That was another option, you remember. It seems unlikely, but would you have preferred that to killing him? He’d be back next month for the same thing, mind you.”
Kit chewed at her lip, her eyes scrunching up. “No,” she said finally.
“The choice isn’t on you, Kit. You had nothing to do with it. This is all on me, and it’s my burden to bear. Not yours.
“Now, is there anything else you wanted to talk about before the others came?”
Kit shook her head, her eyes still glued to the table.
After a handful of heartbeats, her gaze moved up and met his own. “I’m not very good at this. In the beginning, I was bitter, jaded. It felt right. Now, though… now I feel as if I’m abusing my powers.”
“The powers I gave you,” Felix clarified.
Kit nodded her head once. “The powers you gave me.”
“Have I asked you to take a life that you felt wasn’t justified?”
“No.”
“Have I asked you to harm anyone who wasn’t attempting to hurt us?”
“No.”
“Have I asked you to do anything against your will?”
“Yes… well, no. You listened when I told you I didn’t want to use the sausage machine on our people.”
“Then what’s the problem, Kit? I don’t understand. Help me understand.”
Kit licked her lips and then made a vague gesture at him, then back at herself. She shook her head a fraction and then took a partial breath and held it. Then just as suddenly let it out.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it because you can’t read my mind? Never had the problem of not being able to verify a thought, concern, or problem without a proof positive?” Felix said it as gently as he could.
It was the only thing he could think of. Kit and he hadn’t ever really disagreed on many things, but small little things could have added up in her head. And without her ability to rifle through his thoughts, he imagined she had no way to verify her own judgments about situations.
“I… could that be it? It just sounds so selfish. So childlike.”
“How do you confirm what someone believes?”
“I do exactly what you said. I look into the mind of others to see how it was received or thought of and adjust.”
“Have you considered not doing that? Taking people at their face value?”
“Why would I?”
“For fun. See if you can hone in on what psychiatrists and psychologists have been doing for years. Up to you, though, merely a question.
“As to the problem at hand, I wouldn’t worry much about it. Nothing has changed since our last talk. You’re our conscience and our moral compass. I expect you to continue pointing due north and provide me with a counterbalance.”
The door to the conference room burst open and Felicia entered, followed closely by Ioana.
Before the door could close, Lily, Andrea, Victoria, and Miu trooped in, taking their seats.
Victoria took up a spot behind Felix’s right shoulder.
“Welcome, one and all. This department head meeting is more than likely a critical one, as I have one update that must be shared. I’m sure you have topics you want to cover as well, so I’ll be quick about it.
“If no one has any objections?”
Felix looked around the room to each member to confirm there were none.
“I’ve tasked Wraith to kill Agent Smith. He should be dead by tomorrow. At that point, I’ll be heading over to their office to demand to speak with our case worker. With any luck, we’ll get a new one that will take one look at the length of time our assets have been frozen and undo it.”
Everyone had different reactions. Ioana, Miu, and Felicia nodded their heads. Lily had no reaction, as she had already known. Andrea looked thoughtful, and Kit still seemed frustrated.