Chapter 14
We took down most of our Christmas stuff soon after the twenty-fifth, but we left the lounge decorated in deference to Trina, who wouldn't observe the holiday until January seventh. But then, on the morning of New Year's Day, I had just gotten dressed and was wandering over to the kitchen to have breakfast when I heard some suspicious noises. Curious, I turned right instead of left and followed my ears. Trina was in the lounge taking everything down.
"Trina?" I asked. "What's going on?"
She looked over at me. "Christmas is over," she said glumly. "It is time to move on."
I frowned. "I thought it wouldn't be over for you for nearly another week."
She shrugged. "I will not celebrate Christmas this year."
"Why not? I thought you were looking forward to going home to see your parents."
"I was. My parents, it appears, were not," she said. "I had sent them a message asking whether I could bring a friend home for the Christmas holiday. I received their reply today. They said not to bother coming home at all."
I winced. "Ouch! That hurts. Did they say why?"
"Why do you think?" she said bitterly. "They said they did not want prostitute disgracing their home."
I nodded somberly. Figuring out how not to tell one's folks that one is a Prime is always a challenge. Trina's parents had never put much stock in her cover story that she was scratching out a living as an artist and model in an obscure Russian city. Obviously, they had drawn their own conclusions as to how she was making ends meet. Pretty ironic, actually, when you consider the unicorn's opinion of her. "I thought you had entered that art competition in Moscow to show them you were keeping up with your sketching."
"Yes, and I sent in my five pieces. But they do not believe I really entered, and results will not be available for another month."
I came over and put an arm around her shoulders. "Sorry, Trina. I wish I knew what to tell you."
"It is all right." She sighed and shrugged off my hand. "It is my problem, not yours. I will just have to wait until awards banquet in the middle of February. My parents will get an official invitation; they will have to believe me then."
I gave her an encouraging smile. "Well, let me know if there's anything I can do." I gave her a wink. "If you need an escort to the banquet, I'm told I clean up quite nicely."
She smiled faintly. "Thank you, Trevor. I'm sure you do, but I have already asked Mike to go with me."
"Mike? Oh! Um, okay, that's great."
Trina looked at me sharply. "It does not sound great. What's wrong with Mike? Don't tell me you are jealous!"
"Jealous? Me?" I chuckled -- convincingly, I hoped. "No, of course not." There were reasons that I wasn't wild about Trina going out to dinner with Mike -- reasons going back years, to some things Robin had told me before she died -- but they certainly didn't involve jealousy. Trina was a pretty enough gal and I liked her a lot, but she and I had never clicked in that way.
"I should think not!" Trina sniffed. "Pining after both Lily and Padma should keep you busy enough; you don't need to be trying to go out with me as well!"
"Pining after . . . now hang on a minute, Trina. I'll admit that Lily kind of gets my motor running, but I am not pining after Padma!"
She looked skeptical. "If you say so. I noticed that you were looking awfully guilty, though, after I asked why the unicorn would not lie down for her."
"Uh, right." I could feel my face start to turn red. "Yeah, about that . . ."
"Yes?" she prompted me archly.
"Umm . . ." I began. Then I shook my head. "Never mind. Frankly, it's none of your business. So, why did you pick Mike to go to the banquet with you?"
She looked at me closely for a moment or two. Then she evidently decided to allow me to change the subject, for she smiled and said, "Why not? He is nice-looking, so he will make good 'arm candy'. That is the correct usage, isn't it? 'Arm candy'?" When I nodded, grinning, to indicate that it was, she went on, "He will charm the pants off my parents -- that is, he will if he knows what's good for him -- and besides, he owes me dinner anyway."
Ah, that explained it. See, a couple of months ago, Mike had goaded Trina into a dinner bet over whether she could break a board with a knife-hand, what most folks think of as a karate chop. With my coaching, Trina had won the bet, er, easily. (Heh. I was about to say that she won it "handily", but everyone knows that puns are the lowest form of humor!)
But there had been another stipulation to the bet, I recalled -- that the winner got to choose what the loser would wear to the dinner. I knew that Mike had entertained visions of Trina in some sort of micro-bikini, had she lost the bet, and considering Trina's face and figure, that was something I might have paid good money to see for myself. I didn't know what sort of costume Trina had decided to force Mike to put on, though.
"What are you going to make him wear?" I asked her.
"Why, a tuxedo, of course!" she replied, her smile growing broader. "Black tie. What else would one wear to a formal dinner?"
I laughed. "Knowing Mike, I think he'd rather wear the clown costume you were thinking about earlier."
"No doubt."
I helped her take down the rest of the Christmas decorations, and then the two of us strolled into the kitchen together. Nicolai was absentmindedly eating a slice of toast and frowning at some mathematical scribblings on a piece of paper on the table in front of him. Padma was glancing at the math occasionally as well, but mostly she was talking roundhouse kicks with Toby -- savate versus Tae Kwon Do and shoes versus barefoot.
Mike was putting away his breakfast dishes; as he headed out the door, he touched my arm. "Trevor, stop by the office when you're done, would you? Got something I'd like you to do."
"Sure thing, Mike."
A little while later, I opened the office door to find Mike sitting behind the desk. He shook his head as I walked in. "I tell you, Trev, I will be so glad when we find someone to replace Prime Commander. I hate administrative work! I don't know how Shelley managed to get everything done, and I have Bill helping me."
"Is Wizzit looking for someone? I didn't know."
"He has to be, but he hasn't said anything to me about it." He pushed himself away from the desk, stood up, and walked around to my side of it. Perching himself on its edge, he smiled at me. "Trev, old buddy, I've a job for you."
"Uh oh! Nothing too nasty, I hope."
"Nope, not nasty at all. In fact, I think you'll enjoy it," he said. "You see, every Prime Red does things a bit differently, and I have spent the past few weeks looking around to see what changes I'd like to make. You know, to put my fingerprints on the job. There's not too much; I think everyone would agree that Shelley was one of the best Prime Reds we've ever had. Still, I'd like to make a few tweaks in the way we do our training."
I frowned. "What training?"
"Exactly. Everyone around here is assumed to be an expert in something-or-other and to pick up whatever else they need as a matter of course. You have your fighting skills, Trina has her marksmanship, Nicolai and Padma have their tech abilities, and Toby has his medical training. I've, ah, always felt at a disadvantage because I don't have any special knowledge." He grinned. "At least, none that would be of use to us here."
I nodded. I had always assumed that the main reason Mike was recruited to be a Prime is because his reflexes are incredibly fast, as fast as anyone's on the planet. Have you ever seen that dollar bill trick, the one where someone bets you that you can't catch a dollar bill between your fingers when they drop it? Mike is the only guy I know who can actually catch it, time after time after time. He would have been invaluable against the super-fast monsters like JB Swift.
"So, what do you want me to do?" I asked.
"Isn't it obvious? I want you to start up a training program. Find out what people know, what they don't know, and
what they want to know. Set up some classes, maybe once a week. Teach 'em yourself or get someone else to."
I considered the idea; it sounded like a good one. "Okay, I'll see what I can do. I know there are a few things I'd like to learn, myself."
Mike stood up and clapped me on the shoulder. "Good man!" he said.
I turned to leave, then hesitated. "Uh, Mike, can I ask you something?"
"I suppose so. What's on your mind?"
I paused for a moment or two, trying to get my thoughts in order. Then I said, "Um, about this dinner date you've got with Trina . . ."
"Sorry, mate, no can do."
"Huh? No can do what? What are you talking about?"
"I will not step aside and let you escort Trina to that awards banquet in Moscow in February in my place." He grinned at me. "That's what you were going to ask, isn't it?"
"Er, no, it wasn't. I don't have a problem with you taking her. It's just that . . ." I hesitated, wanting to make sure I phrased this the best possible way. "I just want to make sure you treat her right."
His grin dimmed slightly. "And what makes you think I wouldn't?"
"Past experience. Those stories you've told of when you're out on leave, all the conquests you've made, that kind of thing."
"Ah." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, Trevor, not that it's any of your business, but you should know that some of those stories may have been, um, exaggerated somewhat for dramatic effect."
"I figured as much, but there's also . . . Robin."
He frowned at me. "Robin? What's she got to do with anything?"
I took a deep breath. "She told me all about the two of you," I said, making my voice carefully neutral and trying to keep out any hint of accusation. After all, Mike was Prime Red, and I was only Prime Blue. "How you pursued her from her very first day as Prime Violet; how you intimidated her into sleeping with you; how she tried to break it off, but you forced her to --"
"Now stop right there, mate," he interrupted me sharply, "before you say something that both of us might regret." He stabbed a finger at me. "I'll have you know that Michael Bushby has never forced a girl to do anything she didn't want to do. I've never had to. Now, I'll admit that Robin and I had a bit of a fling at one time, but that was over a long time ago, before you ever joined up with us. She was the one who came on to me, and I was the one who broke it off. I never touched her after that, and that's God's own truth."
I frowned, not quite so sure of myself as I had been a minute ago. "That's not what she told me," I said slowly.
"Then she was having you on, because it never happened that way."
"But why would she . . .?"
He threw up his hands. "How should I know? This is Robin we're talking about! She always did have an indifferent relationship with the truth."
I turned away, not sure what to think. "I, uh," I began. "I guess I might owe you an apology, then."
"Yeah, I guess you just might," he agreed roughly. "But what bothers me is that all this time you thought that I had somehow forced Robin to sleep with me, and yet you never said a word to me about it until now. I mean, you and Robin and I could have sat down and sorted it all out together and maybe had a good laugh about it, but instead you let it sit and fester inside you for years. Why is that?"
I shrugged heavily. "I was going to say something at the time, but she only told me about it the night before that mission in Houston, and then . . ."
Mike finished, "Then after she died in Houston, you figured you'd let sleeping dogs lie, is that it?"
I grimaced. "Yeah, something like that."
"I see." His expression suddenly grew more grim. "You didn't by any chance form the opinion that I had something to do with her death, did you?" he asked me suspiciously.
I stared at him in shock. "What? No, of course not!"
"Good," he said, sounding relieved. "At least you're showing some sense. With all the other accusations you've been flinging about, I thought maybe you had come up with the idea that . . ."
I gave a bitter laugh. "No, that was me, not you, remember? All me, no outside help required. Robin's death was totally the fault of Mr. Trevor M. Chiao, Esquire, and everybody knows it." Mike made an impatient sound. "What?" I demanded angrily.
He stared at me as if he were trying to decide whether to say anything. "Look, Trevor," he said after a moment, "I know you were all broken up about Robin's death, and I know that Shelley has been molly-coddling you about it ever since. But now she's gone and I don't have the patience for it, so I'm going to say this once, and then I never want to hear about it again."
He leaned forward until our faces were maybe an inch apart. "Your weapon broke and you were swarmed by Zoinks. That could have happened to anyone. Robin ran over to help you. Her weapon broke, and she got tossed off the roof of the parking garage and hit the ground before Wizzit could teleport her to safety. She died before he could initiate a healing coma. Now, suppose you tell me -- how was any of that your fault?"
I wanted to tell him how. I wanted to explain that I shouldn't have let myself get in over my head with the Zoinks. Or that I should have fought my way through to Robin in time. That I should have been just a bit stronger, or faster, or more skilled, or more determined, or more . . . something.
But I couldn't. No one had ever stated matters quite that baldly to me before, and put that way, it seemed obvious there was nothing I could have done. Mike was right, and I knew it. And maybe it was time to stop beating myself up over it. So I dropped my gaze and shrugged and mumbled, "All right. I guess maybe it wasn't really my fault after all."
"Damn straight it wasn't!"
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Thanks, Mike. You've given me a lot to think about."
He stopped me before I could leave. "Yeah, well, while we're being frank with each other, here's two more things for you to chew on." He held up an index finger. "Number one, stay the hell away from Padma. Everyone knows that Nicolai is head-over-heels for her, and after that little adventure with the unicorn, everyone who is not blind now knows you've been banging her. That's a dangerous mixture for the team, and I want it to stop. Now."
"One time!" I protested. "Padma and I made love one time! Neither of us planned it; it just . . . happened. That was months ago, and we promised each other we'd never do it again -- because of Nicolai."
"See that you don't. If I catch a whiff that the two of you are up to something you shouldn't be -- hell, if I even catch the two of you alone in the same room together -- there will be consequences for both of you, and they won't be pleasant."
"Fine," I said sullenly. "What's the other thing?"
"Just this: Get your head on straight about Lily."
I snorted. "My head is on straight."
"I don't think so. You've been making some dangerous choices lately, putting yourself and your team at risk, and it's all because you think you can fight Enclave and protect Lily all at the same time. Look, she is not your girlfriend. She is not your friend. She is not even an ally. She is our enemy, and the sooner you come to terms with that, the better off we all will be."
I glared at him. "Is that all?"
"I think that's enough. Don't you?"