53. Sentence
"You could at least look at me."
"I know why you're here, and I can't help you," Dex answers, scanning over the email he's composing. He's too busy to deal with Kae right now.
In two scant months he and Hopper will be of age by House reckoning, and they'll be prepared. No mucking around for entry-level jobs for them upon graduation-they're launching their own (semi-legal) company with Concord, designing, making and selling high-end security (and anti-security) software and devices. C develops the software, H implements the hardware, and D's the one who analyzes the market and courts potential clients. It's a sign of how good they are that they've gotten as far as they have in a mere three months.
His email contact list right now is comprised of representatives for several dozen national defense departments and powerful international corporations. He has to pay keen attention to global politics and corporate jostling. Many of their future partners require a great deal of delicate manipulating and coddling and flattery. On the other end he's got a mountain of files awaiting his attention, containing the details of scores of up-and-coming engineers and developers that fit the bill of 'creative', 'moldable', and 'available for hire'. Then there's the contractor building their headquarters in Stockholm; there have been some setbacks in installing the electrics to Hopper's unorthodox specifications, and Dex has been pulling strings with the Warden's help to keep things on schedule. Then, completely unrelated to business matters, that diamond ring Hopper helped him pick out last time they visited London is burning a hole in his sock drawer.
On top of all that, the final draft of his research paper on the sociological effects of the Industrial Revolution on developing countries is due at midnight and he hasn't proofread it yet. Kae's problems aren't even on his priority list.
"Can't, or won't?" Kae says in a low voice.
"Yes," Dex says seriously, clicking the Send button and turning to her.
He's mildly surprised at how defeated she looks. Briefly he wonders if coming to him was her last resort, then immediately discards the idea. It's plausible that the depressed slope of her shoulders and the unsuccessful struggle to keep her face from falling are not an act, but that doesn't mean she's not deliberately using her misery, however genuine, to try to win his sympathy.
It's not going to work. Quite the contrary, Dex would like nothing more than to dish out a scalding-hot piece of his mind. But despite how he feels about it, he made an agreement with Hopper and Concord, and he'll stick to the party line.
"We told you a long time ago that we would remain neutral in this issue."
"This not the same issue," Kae protests. "It not about—about F." The despondent look she casts up at him pathetically through her bangs, Dex thinks, is almost certainly calculated. "That was a long time ago. They've no right—"
"To what? Not speak to you? Not be your friends? In what way are they abusing any natural human right?"
"Don't you lawyer-talk at me, Dex, we known each other since we kids. You know alla sure that G and J gone swing out they way to make my life a living hell," she snaps.
That's something of an exaggeration. Gao and Jitter ignore Kae, pretending most of the time that she's not even there except for the occasional disgusted glance. It wouldn't be such a bad thing if it weren't for the lack of support from any other quarter; she and Icarus are still friends, but the bond has cooled noticeably, and many of her other allies have edged away over the years.
Perhaps you should have thought of all this before, he thinks, his mental tone of voice taking on a hard, sarcastic edge. Out loud, he replies smoothly, "They haven't harmed you, broken any rules, or otherwise acted in any way that has convinced us to alter our stance on the matter."
"We, we, it's always we. Can't you ever make a decision for yourself, Dex?"
"You assume that it would be in your best interest for me to do so," D says, and takes a great deal of grim satisfaction in the way her carefully practiced look of injured anger is yanked off her face.
For a moment, however fleeting, he appreciates how in a simple oblique threat he can impress upon K without betraying his friends the bitter fight that the three of them went through—the hours of heated debate and the philosophical disagreement that nearly brought he and Hopper to blows and made Concord storm back to her room to cry, and that agreeing to take no side was the only way to all be on the same side. In a flash, she can see how tenuous her position with him is. Comparatively, Outsiders like the contractors and clients need to be ham-fisted around. For as much as he's enjoying the work and looking forward to whatever exciting things Outside has in store, Dex is going to miss the House, with all its slippery maneuverings.
And sure enough—in a second she's regained her footing, and changes tack.
"They been worse since Concord left, you know," she says.
"Concord likes things peaceful, and they needed to stay on her good side," says Dex, unable to stop the fond smile that finds its way onto his face.
"She wouldn't like what going on now that she gone."
It's a clumsy, desperate move. He isn't about to let Kae use his soon-to-be—hopefully—dear heaven, hopefully—fiancée's opinions to break the very truce he made for the sake of preserving his friendship with her.
"She was aware what the results of her absence might be and took them into account when she decided to leave." Dex turns back to his screen. "In any case, Hop and I are leaving soon. Nothing we might do would make a jot of difference once we were gone. There's nothing I can do for you."
"That not true," K says, approaching his desk entreatingly. "Everybody listen to you. If you just said something to them—"
"But I won't, so this is a dead-end argument."
"Do you really think I deserve what they putting me through? It's been years, Dex!"
"You broke the rules. This is the result of your actions."
"Rules? Rules?" Kae flings her arms up in exasperation. "Who are you to talk about rules? Everybody in this place bend the rules to snapping point every day—"
"You as good as told him to stop taking his medication, Kae," D says, his voice hardening with quiet anger, because there are rules and then there are Rules and this is the biggest one. They agreed to be neutral on the issue of Kae's accusations about Fallon and her subsequent dealings with his best friends, but there was no question about this. "You messed with his tuning. You got a Wammy scrubbed. It should come as no surprise to you that his friends seek reprisal. Whether or not the particulars of their revenge are deserved is not for me to say."
"I didn't mean for it to come out like that, I was upset—"
"All the good intentions in the world will buy you little more than forgiveness from those few who will accept them," Dex snaps. For what has to be the millionth time that moment in the library, a mere five days before the infamous suicide incident, comes back to him: Alt looking back at them so desperately as Backup reeled him in like a fly in a web, and his mind overflows with things he could have, should have said—'You don't have to be friends with him, A, come back and join us' or 'Why do you follow him when he so obviously upsets you?' or even just 'Go to hell, B.' "There is no easy escape from the consequences of our actions, regardless of our intentions."
"So you will stand by and do nothing," Kae says, monotone and quiet.
"Keep in mind that 'doing nothing' includes not only not supporting you, but not acting against you. We decided that a long time ago."
There's a long silence, during which he begins replying to another email. Then K whispers, "Then what am I supposed to do? How do I escape this?"
For the first time in their little chat, D actually believes more than he doubts that her words come from the heart. She's not even looking at him anymore, but at her own hands, as though she is lost and they might give her some hint of where to go. Dex fixes his eyes on his computer screen, takes three slow breaths while he debates his next words, and says neutrally, "Only you have the power to remove yourself from this situation."
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
K trembles. "Is that the only solution you're going to suggest?"
"I'm not suggesting anything, merely pointing out a fact. Unless you think G and J will somehow let up."
With a long, shuddery sigh, Kae nods once, ducks her face down, and leaves the room, taking care to snick the door quietly closed behind her.
Three days later K requests she be transferred from the House.
