“So it’s justified so long as someone else gets their hands dirty, is it?” Gabriel spat in contempt, his composure breaking down, “is that what you told Kane when you recruited him, or did he just want you to treat his blood disorder?”
“Kane didn’t have a blood disorder.” Red-eye answered, “That was just part of the cover story required to exfiltrate data from the Loki facility. The important thing is that the intelligence he provided will bear fruit for years, if not decades to come.”
“Even more so if you take up the observer on its offer.” Gabriel added cynically.
“That’s for another discussion.” Red-eye replied, “But the fruits of that arrangement will be thanks to you. So I don’t understand why all this bothers you so much.”
Gabriel did something he had never dared to do before: he stepped forward, walking all the way up to the dais and planting his hands on Red-eye’s desk. The director-general wasn’t visibly moved, even as Gabriel narrowed his luminescent green eyes into a furious glare, locking with the impassive, heterochromatic gaze of his boss.
“I will not be lied to,” Gabriel said with a barely suppressed note of menace in his voice, “either directly or by omission. Not even by you.”
“Do you think that Ogilvy might still be alive?” Red-eye asked without even flinching, “Or that Doran might have been uninjured if I had told you about Kane?”
Gabriel had no answer. He couldn’t know how the mission would have turned out differently had he known about Kane’s status as a DNI asset, let alone how that information would have saved Ogilvy or Doran from death or injury. But he felt blindsided, nonetheless, and the apparent deceit and manipulation infuriated him.
“Or do you think I risked your life unnecessarily?”
“You risked all our lives unnecessarily by not telling us about Kane!” Gabriel shouted, the remains of his composure dissolving.
“If I wanted to do that, I would have sent you in alone.” Red-eye replied simply.
Gabriel was silent again.
“Did you seriously believe I foisted a squad on you in order to slow you down?” Red-eye continued, “The point of voidstalkers is to be able to act alone if necessary. Providing you with a squad increased your combat effectiveness dramatically, and probably saved your life. Otherwise, it would have been you who went tumbling over the railings instead of Ogilvy.”
Gabriel’s fingers curled into fists. Red-eye simply stared back at him, maddeningly indifferent to his anger. She knew he wouldn’t do it.
“If there’s nothing else,” Red-eye said, breaking the icy staring match, “I suggest you go home and reassure your family that you’re still alive. And you’ll also want to reassure Aster that she’s no longer in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” Gabriel demanded, baring his teeth in a wolf-like snarl.
“Whilst you were on deployment, we raided J.E. Co.’s offices and labs, and prepared a MacGuffin sting operation.” Red-eye explained calmly.
“Of course, we don’t want the ‘competition’ stealing from us, do we?”
“The ‘competition’ turned out to be your mother,” Red-eye continued, “and the mole was initially believed to be your wife.”
Gabriel’s snarl vanished.
“The ACS also labelled her the prime suspect in the murder of her colleague, Dr Felix Kessler,” Red-eye added casually, “who turned out to be the actual mole.”
Gabriel was speechless with rage; even more so because all she did was stare back at him with one Human brown eye and one bionic red eye. She looked more like a cold-blooded machine than a person.
“In any case, it’s all been cleared up.” Red-eye said, “So go home and get some rest.”
Gabriel turned on his heel and headed for the door.
“Gabriel.” Red-eye called after him.
He paused at the door, wondering if he was about to be reprimanded for his attitude.
“Anger makes you Human.”
* * *
Gabriel was still angry when the chartered sky-car arrived to fly him home, too angry to parse Red-eye’s cryptic pseudo-profundity about anger making him Human. He had been prepared to sacrifice the whole squad, including himself, for the mission. But doing so on the basis of incomplete intelligence was a different matter entirely.
Ogilvy might well be alive, and Doran not in critical condition, were it not for Red-eye’s lie by omission. He couldn’t know that for certain, but something in his gut made him feel it, and anger was the only way he could express it.
Before departing, he was handed a report containing a summary of the events that had transpired while he was away. His face and mood darkened the more he read, and by the time the sky-car touched down at the landing pad, he was absolutely livid. His mother was lucky she was in custody, because he wanted to kill her.
Gabriel paused in front of the apartment door, his scowl relaxing even though his anger hadn’t abated. He couldn’t be angry at a family reunion; at the very least he couldn’t look angry, not in front of Aster, and certainly not in front of his own children.
The biometric sensor flash-scanned his eyes and the door opened for him. The maganiel android was standing guard in the hallway for some reason, with its sidearm primed and attached to the magnetic plate on its thigh. It nodded its head politely at Gabriel as he headed to the bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.
Aster was already there, lying on his side of the bed. She rolled around to see who had come in, and sat up abruptly when she saw him. Then she leapt off the bed and rushed over to embrace him. Gabriel reciprocated the embrace, squeezing her tight against his chest.
“Your bosses sent me a message saying you were back.” Aster purred with relief.
“It’s good to be back.” Gabriel replied.
“Gabriel, they accused me of–” Aster began to say frantically.
“I know, I was told.” Gabriel interjected reassuringly, “it’s all been taken care of.”
“What, so you know I was caught up in some kind of sting operation?” Aster asked.
“Yes, the DNI told me everything,” Gabriel said, then he added, “including about the trap into which you walked.”
The warm reunion suddenly became cooler.
“Excuse me?” Aster said with a marginally harder tone.
“You’re a brilliant engineer, but an absolutely terrible spy.” Gabriel said matter-of-factly, “Not only did you get recorded snooping around a place by three separate groups, but one of them was able to find out your personal override code by surveilling you with a simple camera that he made in the lab.”
“I know all that, thank you very much,” Aster said defensively, “so what?”
“So,” Gabriel continued, “you opened yourself up to being blackmailed and framed by a supposed friend and colleague, not only as the mole, but as the saboteur, and as his killer.”
“Fuck you!” Aster snapped, Gabriel’s words having hit a nerve, “Felix was a friend; I’ve known him for years! He couldn’t have been a mole, and he would never frame me!”
“Really?” Gabriel said with a hard glare, “how well did you know him?”
“Well enough to have been invited over for lunch countless times.” Aster responded, “Him and his partner are two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. You would’ve been invited over too, if you were ever home!”
“So you knew the two of them well enough to know that Kessler’s partner used to be a ship-board engineer?” Gabriel asked pointedly.
“Of course I knew that,” Aster shot back, “he worked for twenty five years on deep-space mining voyages before retiring.”