Cloud Dust: RD-1 (R-D #1)(8)

"I'm not sure she should be a nurse at all," I fumed. "Don't let her near Corinne again. If you can't find somebody better than that, call me. I'll get Shaw over here to handle it."

"Yes, sir."

He'd better damn well call me sir. I outranked him and had access to the security videos, just as he did. I'd already seen them—with James. James was pissed about the way Corinne was shoved onto the bed and left there for sixteen f*cking hours. "Unless it's an emergency, I expect to be notified of any medical treatment for Corinne in the future. You got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." I stalked away from the med-unit, still fuming.

*

"Colonel, we've had word," James placed a folder on my desk. "The Blacksmith is changing. He didn't die."

"I have mixed feelings about this," I said, shaking my head before opening the folder. I'd gotten a dossier on the Blacksmith, just as the other handlers would receive the information. All of us had intelligence on the Five, plus Corinne, to make sure safeguards were in place. The Program was too important to allow a single death to debilitate it. If information on the Program was leaked, the Five, the handlers and Corinne were in jeopardy.

"What do you think the odds are that he'll fit in?"

"Almost as poor as Corinne's odds. I put him ahead of Corinne because this guy, young and strong, could probably handle two or three of the Five at once. He has a reputation for a reason."

"I read his stuff last night. Scary," James agreed. "He may draw a handler just as tough."

"What you read probably wasn't the half of it."

"Yes, sir."

*

Corinne

My stuff showed up after five. Nobody came up to help. I wasn't surprised. I'd walked downstairs to the restaurant at three to get a late lunch. I was watched the whole time. Somebody, somewhere, was watching while I unpacked my stuff for the second time in a week.

I pretended that wasn't true as I filled drawers in my small kitchen with kitchen gadgets. If I thought about it too much, I'd lose the beef stew I'd had for lunch. With crackers.

"What are you doing in there?" I pulled my mp-3 player out of a box of ladles and spatulas. Sticking earphones in my ears, I listened to music the rest of the evening while I put things away.

*

James showed up with two lattes the following morning. "I'm here to hook up your desktop," he grinned.

"Hi, James. How long will this take?" I asked.

"Maybe an hour, why?"

James has blue eyes, brown, curly hair and probably got into everything when he was a child. He has an air of curiosity about him that hasn't been taken away as yet.

"I have time to bake cookies for you," I nodded and let him in. I took my vanilla latte, too—I wasn't about to turn that down.

"Oatmeal cookies?"

"Yep."

"Nobody bakes cookies around here," he sighed and followed me to the kitchen. I didn't point out that the hour he took watching me bake cookies was under surveillance; he had warm cookies to eat in forty-five minutes and ate almost a dozen. I packed another dozen for him to take with him after he hooked up my computer.

"I wish I could tell my family that I just hooked up Sarah Fox's computer," he said as he walked out my door. "Thanks for the cookies."

"Oh, you could tell them," I shrugged. "I just can't say what might happen to you afterward."

"True." He grinned and waved before heading toward the elevator.

"Look, it's Corinne. Itty, bitty, helpless Corinne," he mimed a fainting fit. Becker, my least favorite of the Five walked up, tossing an insult in my direction. He'd been to the gym to work out and just happened to walk all the way to the other end of the Mansion's third floor to ride down the west end elevators.

Nosy bastard.

"Look, it's Becker," I said, waving an arm. "I'm surprised you can say my name without pointing. Or drooling." I didn't wait for him to think up a comeback—that could take a while. I shut the door and locked it instead. He didn't walk away for several minutes. Yeah, I listened shamelessly for his footsteps.

*

"Corinne, you shouldn't bait him like that," August speared chunks of salad with a fork. He'd forced me to have dinner with him in the cafeteria later, before he went home to his wife.

"So, you want me to just listen to the insults and say nothing?"

"What did he say to you?"

"Come on, you know what he said." I figured everybody in the Mansion knew what he said.

"Yeah." August shook his head and kept eating.

"When the President waved her hand and ordered me here, didn't you step up and argue with her? Why didn't you tell her what happens when the Five and I get together?"

"I think she's seen the reports."

"Everybody sees the reports," I muttered, hugging myself. I had chicken and noodles in front of me and hadn't touched them. My stomach would rebel, and the cafeteria floor was mostly clean. The staff would probably prefer that it stay that way. "Nobody does anything about them," I added.

"The Five are special," August said, refusing to look at me.