Tricks of the Trade. Laura Anne Gilman

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СКАЧАТЬ in the office. Nobody wanted a floater. Ever.

      Everyone else filtered out, but I stayed in my chair, looking at the folder.

      “You guys make it look so easy.”

      I twisted in my chair and looked at Lou, who had left, and then come back, standing in the doorway. “What?”

      “Easy.” She made a gesture with one hand at some vague thing in front of her. “I know it’s not—god, how I know—but you never seem to hesitate. Stosser gives you an assignment, you absorb it, and head out. You call on your current, and you just assume that the current will do what you want. And it does.”

      “If you’re still worrying about the incident with the piskies, they do that to everyone, first case….” I started to say, but she waved me off. That wasn’t it.

      I waited. That was the first thing Venec had taught us: if you wait quietly long enough, people will tell you what you need to know.

      “You’re what, twenty-four?” She made it sound like a disease.

      “Yeah.” Twenty-three and a half, actually, but I didn’t think correcting her was going to make things better.

      Lou stared at the apple in her other hand like she couldn’t remember picking it up, then shook her head and looked back at me. She had a serious face to start, and the look in her eyes now, a sort of despairing resignation, just deepened that impression. “I’m a decade older than you. I had solid training, good training. I’m high-res enough to hold my own. And I’m smart enough to understand how everything works, break it down, and make it better.”

      All of that was true, and she knew it and she knew I knew it, so I just kept my mouth shut and waited for her to get to her point. But she didn’t. She just stood there, that apple in her hand, one bite taken out of it like Snow White’s last dinner.

      I twisted back and stared at the paperwork in front of me, wanting nothing more than to pack up and head out to the floater, get it over with, if Lou wasn’t going to say anything more. But she stood there, and the silence drew out and got uncomfortable until the weight of social responsibility as hammered into me by J was like a third person in the room.

      “You wouldn’t be on the team if you weren’t good,” I said, hoping that would be enough.

      “I know that.”

      “And you’ll learn the control needed to—”

      Her snort interrupted me, and I was thankful. I could lie reasonably well, but I hated doing it. Honestly, though, I had no idea what she wanted me to say, or why she hadn’t gone to Sharon, instead. They were closer in age, had more in common… Why me?

      “I’m never going to get it. Not out there, during an open case, with all that pressure. It’s just…like saying Pietr’s suddenly going to stop ghosting.”

      She was probably right. Pietr hated the fact that he couldn’t control the way he faded from sight under stress, even though it was probably going to save his life some day.

      “I just… I keep wondering why I can’t do it, what’s wrong with me…and then I wonder what else is wrong with me, what am I missing, and what happens if we discover that thing during a case? What happens if we screw up because I can’t handle something in the field, or one of you gets hurt, or…” She stopped, and took a bite out of the apple, teeth crunching into the flesh with maybe a little too much violence.

      I was flailing, trying to figure out what she needed to hear. “That’s why we work together. So if one of us misses something, the other’s there as backup. We all make mistakes. Venec will be happy to remind you of that fact, if you’d like.”

      Another snort. “You never doubt yourself, do you, Bonnie? Never once wonder if you’re not good enough, worry that you’ll do something so wrong there’s no recovering from it?”

      “Of course I do. But everything short of death can be recovered from, and death kinda takes the worry out of the situation.” I hoped.

      “Nice. I don’t think I was ever that cocky. Maybe that’s the problem.”

      She didn’t mean to be cruel, but the words stung. I had a flash of J, years ago, sitting in his favorite chair in the library. The reading lamp was on, and Rupert, who had just been a brown-and-white mop of a puppy then, was sleeping at his feet. He had been gone for a few days, and I’d been happy to have him home, but he didn’t talk much and I’d come in to see what was up, if he maybe wanted dinner, or a drink. And in the light of the lamp, a pale umber glow against his skin, I’d seen the damp track of tears on his cheek.

      Whatever he’d been doing, it hadn’t gone well.

      “J?” I could have closed the door and left; he’d known I was there but he hadn’t acknowledged me, and so we could both pretend I hadn’t seen anything. But that wasn’t how our household worked.

      “Not now, Bonnie,” my mentor had said, his voice a flat, gentle tone. “Right now I am not able to deal with anything beyond my own inabilities.”

      I’d been fourteen then, and filled with a sense—nurtured by J—that hard work and skill could get me through anything. The idea that there was something J couldn’t do, that he might doubt his own abilities, was as foreign to me as the thought that he might sprout wings and fly.

      I was older now, and had seen more of what life could and would throw at you on a daily basis, things that overwhelmed and dispirited as much as they lifted us and showed us joy. But…

      “I’m sorry.” I was. “I didn’t mean to make light of what it is you’re saying…”

      “But you have no idea what I’m saying, do you?”

      I shook my head, then nodded. “No. I mean, I know what you’re saying, I just…”

      Lou laughed, and it was tired but amused, not mocking. “But you’re twenty-four and have never failed at anything, have you?”

      I had failed to bring my dad’s killer to justice. The bitterness of that still made my throat ache. But I’d dealt with it, accepted the failure as inevitable—and PUPI was my guarantee that never happened again. The failure had not been my inability, but the lack of a mechanism.

      So I said the only thing that I knew was true. “We’re a stronger team, because you’re part of it.”

      There was silence, and I risked looking back at Lou. She was staring out the window, and the look on her face was one I recognized: deep, fast-moving thoughts under the surface. I saw that look a lot, around here.

      “Yeah,” she said, finally. “Okay.”

      She tossed the half-eaten apple into the waste can in the corner, and left. I didn’t get the feeling I’d helped her solve anything.

      Hopefully, I’d have better luck with the floater.

      two

      Pietr had been waiting, semipatiently, in the break room. He took one look at my face and bit back whatever he was going to say, just handing me my case and holding the door to the hallway. One of the great things about our office was that we СКАЧАТЬ