Summary: Remy's patience with CID is wearing thin. The time it is taking the AI to get a lock on Asha Odekar is starting to get everyone on edge. The boss has very defined ways she responds when she is on the edge, and few people who know her like it when she is there. Shaundi and Pierce inadvertently wind up pushing her a little closer to the precipice when they have a hand in telling Matt precisely what McGinnis is pushing CID to find.
A/N: Hugs and kisses, per usual, to the lovely and spectacular Chyrstis, fabulous reader and idea bouncer that she is. Her help with these pieces has been completely and indescribably valuable and helpful.
Free to Be
04 Confrontational
-1-
The clash and clatter drew attention from all parts of the ship. Kinzie jumped backward a foot or more just as CID went flying past her, in part under his own power, but he obviously had a little help from the boss who was hot on the AI's heels.
"I swear you electronic piece of shit. I warned you once already," the petite blonde growled ominously as she stalked toward the machine that darted past Kinzie.
Shaundi and Pierce had run down the other stairs in an attempt to cut the boss off when CID jetted past them. Remy's gaze was focused on the orb that was now making a monotonous sound that mimicked a scream of panic. Judging from the look on McGinnis' face, the damn thing had good reason to worry.
"Boss, hold up a minute," Pierce said stepping into her path, albeit reluctantly. "I know the little guy's kind of a dick. But we actually do need him."
"Pierce is right," Kinzie added from halfway up the stairs.
"Day by day he's proving himself more useless," Remy replied when she stopped. She stabbed at the air just past Washington's shoulder with every word, while she eyed the device floating behind Shaundi.
Pierce was just glad the familiar and intimidating gaze was not turned on him, even despite that fact he was not keen on standing in between Remy and anything really. It had happened a few times in the past with mixed results, but more times than not between the boss and what she was after was not smart place to find yourself, no matter who you were.
When Matt stepped out of the cargo bay, he stopped cold near Shaundi. The hacker said nothing; he merely observed the confrontation, trying to decipher the tension that everyone was radiating in that small space.
Remy looked up at Pierce, eyes full of fire. "Plus the little fucker zapped me. Again!"
"Aww, shit!" Pierce crooned, shaking his head. He glanced over his shoulder at the device that was now hovering defensively behind the combined cover of Matt and Shaundi. CID really needed not to antagonize the boss anymore than he did naturally. Working the boss' nerves never panned out well for anyone.
"It was self-defense," CID argued, his voice wobbling like a frightened child.
It reminded Pierce of something Kinzie had told he and Shaundi-CID was like them. He had been alive once, not human, but something living, breathing, organic. The only difference was that the Zin had captured and killed him and his people. He was a very real reminder of just what could be waiting for them all.
Remy growled and inched forward. Pierce, gingerly, set his hands on Remy's shoulders, knowing the response it would garner. When she turned her ire on her lieutenant, he was expecting it and moved his hands out to the side a little so he was no longer touching her. It was a trait they all knew, though none of them really knew why she was so averse to anyone touching her, even friends.
No one knew where she had found the switchblade, but ever since she had, it was always on her person. The sound was very distinctive and it was one Shaundi and Pierce both knew well-they chalked it up to too much time spent with McGinnis and Gat. So when she flipped the blade open, Washington took a step back.
The boss looked past the three people now between she and CID. "Ten hours, Data Boy. Ten hours then I start prying off parts. You got me," she challenged.
"I cannot guarantee-"
"Ten. Hours." The finality in her tone even made Pierce's ass pucker. This shit is getting out of hand.
Folding the blade closed, McGinnis walked toward the heavy bag. When she noticed Kinzie, she offered the woman a little nod and an apologetic look. Then she looked right at Pierce. "When that bastard finds something, you let me know immediately."
"Sure thing, Boss."
"Immediately, Pierce! I mean it."
"Yeah, I feel ya. First thing," he replied. Fuck, now I'm on the hook for this shit, too. He, Matt, and Shaundi all turned and looked at CID. The three of them all but pushed the orb into the cargo bay. "So how close are you?"
CID's voice almost sounded scared despite the digitization. "I don't know."
"Oh, this is great," Shaundi fumed. "She's going to pull him apart piece-by-piece then we'll be well and truly fucked. All because you can't find-"
"Shut up, girl," Pierce cautioned in a sing-song voice with a quick glance at the hacker beside them.
"What is the president looking for?" Matt asked, looking from one to the other of them.
Pierce and Shaundi just eyed one another for a moment. Shaundi tipped her head at the kid. Washington furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head slightly. She replied with raised eyebrows and an emphatic look.
"Seriously? What the hell is going on?" Matt repeated.
Shaundi sighed in resignation and Pierce grinned, feeling just a little victorious. If he was going to be on the hook for CID's failing to find the target, then the least Shaundi could do was catch a little hell for revealing said objective
"The boss is trying to locate Asha," Shaundi said quietly.
Matt just stared at her. "What? Why?"
"I have no idea," Pierce replied. When the boss told CID, that locating the other spy was priority one Washington had been a little surprised too. He would have preferred they locate Ben, at least then someone on the damn ship would be able to talk Remy of her ledge when she got there again-and she always got there. That woman is too damn high strung.
CID hovered there for a moment. "If my theory is correct, she is concerned that Mr. Miller is outnumbered by former enemies and feels like an outsider."
"Shut up, CID!" Shaundi retorted with a harsh tone.
Sadly, the damn electronic idiot was dead on. When her own crew asked the boss why, that was the reason she had given them. Some fucking thing about cohesion and feeling like part of the group. The Saints were trying to include him, but even Pierce, who actually kind of considered Matt almost a friend, knew the hacker was not feeling the vibe. The MI-6 agent spent most of his time holed up alone in the cargo bay with his gadgets and his code. Kinzie was kind of the same way, but she at least peeked out of her little lair to hang out once and a while.
None of them really knew anything about Matt, except that he had screwed the Saints over, tried to kill Shaundi and the boss, and kept to himself. He was an outsider, and so far nothing the kid managed to accomplish had changed the fact that deep down they all kind of still saw him as the leader of the Deckers. Pierce doubted that even bringing Asha on board could help with that, though, maybe if she were around, the kid would climb out from under his digital rock once and a while.
"Shaundi," Kinzie's voice called, echoing off the bare metal.
The brunette groaned in response. "Be right there!" she yelled in response. "CID just find her, and fast. For all our sakes."
The lieutenant headed up to the simulation docks, while CID followed. Pierce adjusted his hat, fully aware that Miller was staring at him, but even in an awkward silence it only takes so long to find just the perfect jaunty angle.
"Is that true?" Matt finally asked.
"Boss has been looking for everybody," Pierce said with a non-committal tone which he hoped was reinforced by the shallow one-shouldered shrug.
"Then why did Shaundi say-?"
"Look, man," Pierce interrupted. "The boss knows her shit. She's been doing this crap a long time. She knows how to make people do things they didn't even know they could do. I stopped asking those sorts of questions a long time ago. All I know is she told Nuts-and-Bolts to find Asha. Then gave us some spiel about cohesion and people being part of the crew. Belonging and shit, ya know?"
Pierce pulled his hat off and ran his hand over his head a few times. "I guess it's like being canonized, back in the day. Your people bust your ass then pick you up and dust you off. They spilled your blood, you spilled theirs, and that makes you family, so to speak."
Miller said nothing, which was just not working for Pierce.
"Look it's not my call. We're all trying to make you feel like part of the crew, but you're still hiding out in this cave. So I guess she figures having someone you trust around will work out better than us failing at playing nice and pretending to be friends. She's trying to find you some family, kid."
-2-
A handful of hours split between beating on a leather bag full of sand and synthetic materials and breaking the simulation usually managed to calm the boss' irritation, but Remy knew that in about five hours she was going to have to pry some parts from the CID shell just to prove her point, and keep her word. She was not the type of person to say something and not do it. Though she had let the AI get away with shocking her again, but he had also been right, it was a defensive response to her trying to rip one of those damn antennas off when he told her he had not pinpointed Asha's location yet.
The last time McGinnis had to get a group together and in working order, she had Johnny around to beat people into submission and scare them into line, not that Remy was incapable of creating the same effect. But it always seemed to work better when the boss was more respected than outright feared, though there were those times when fear had to come into play. Usually people became frightened of Remy once they worked with her for the first time and saw precisely what she was capable of-at least that was where the true fear came from, the fear that could make you shiver with just a thought. But that type of unease paled in comparison to that which was created when someone beat you within an inch of your life, which is why she left that kind of intimidation to Johnny Gat.
This situation was different. Everyone on the ship, well, except maybe for CID, knew what Remy McGinnis was capable of firsthand, and CID was learning it fast. But the AI and Miller were also the only two that were working from a point of intimidation as their benchmark, rather than connection. CID was earning his fear of the boss. But the hacker in the cargo bay was working off his first impressions still. Or so it seemed to Remy.
"Are you really going to kill CID?" Kinzie asked between keystrokes.
Remy stretched as she stepped out of the dock. She crossed the few steps to the console where she noticed the bottle of water and one of the wrapped bar thingies the crew had discovered a supply of in their last raid on the mother ship. The fresh rations had run out, gone bad, or were fast approaching one of those, so the human rebels were basically down to whatever the hell these things were. Kensington had deemed them safe and nutritional, but they tasted like cardboard, though occasionally a fruity flavor would sneak up on you, if you were lucky.
"I should, but I won't. I am, however, going to pull off a few non-vital parts. Including whatever gives him the ability to shock me."
"That would be a power cell, and he needs those."
"Well, fuck. Guess I'll just have to go with one of those antennas like I originally planned. They're redundant right?" Remy asked, opening the bottle of water.
Kinzie laughed and shook her head. "The little one in the middle. That way Miller or I can get it soldered back on relatively quickly. The big one will take some rewiring. So please. Just the little one." Kinzie looked up at her pressing her palms together like the request was a little prayer.
Remy winced and groaned jokingly. "Fine." She took a bite of the bar, the faintest hint of peaches flavored the bland grainy texture. "Why the hell is it so quiet?"
"I think everyone's asleep, except CID. He's getting closer though. Come see."
Remy rounded the console and leaned over the redhead's shoulder. She had no idea what Kinzie wanted her to see. It was like a web of light, though there seemed to be a few points along the bright strands that were brighter than others.
"See, he's narrowed it down to five points." Kinzie leaned back in her chair and the boss sighed tiredly. "Of course, he cannot be certain if one of them is actually Asha. It could be Ben. Or neither." The last word was said much more softly and with a great deal of caution
"Damnit!" Remy spun away and kicked a chair over.
"I know. But it's not that easy, Boss."
"I know. I know. I get it. And I still have a headache from the last time you tried to explain it."
"I don't get why it matters so damn much."
"Remember what it was like for you at first?" Remy prompted, looking down at her friend.
Kinzie looked away.
-3-
The gunfire was a mite disquieting, but then it could be a rescue or something else entirely. A woman's voice was yelling orders and there was some rather unsettling laughter. As the gunshots got closer, the former FBI agent strained against the ropes that bound her. She found herself rather surprised that any of the Deckers were that adept at knot-tying, which meant there was little Kinzie Kensington could do other than lay there and await whatever would befall her when the gunmen reached the ship's bridge.
The door flew open and two Deckers dropped to the ground in quick succession. One of the trio was pretentious. Who wears a white Italian wool suit and $2000 loafers on a mission. The woman in heels must be out of her mind. Then there was the first person who came through the door, the one who the agent presumed had killed both men in the tight space with her. Loose jeans and combat boots-sensible, though less than professional. When the person leaned toward her, Kinzie held her breath for a moment when she saw the familiar face.
"You don't seem that excited about being rescued," the woman in heels noted. Kinzie did not think much of Shaundi or Pierce at first, at least not much beyond what she had read in their dossiers, which was the reason for her startled reaction at seeing the leader of the Saints on that boat in Steelport.
"I'm waiting to see if you were sent to kill me," Kinzie said way too calmly.
"Girl's pragmatic. I like her," Pierce said with a quick nod as he ducked back through the doorway.
The woman who had knelt over her, Remy McGinnis, quickly slit the ropes binding the former FBI agent's hands and feet.
"So what do you want with me?" the redhead asked as she stood, rubbing at her wrists.
"We heard you know some people who hate the Syndicate as much as we do," Pierce replied, firing three shots at a pair of neon-clad fools on a Shark.
"And I'm kind of in need of some people who know Steelport," the boss added as she crossed back to where they had entered.
"I might be able to help with that," Kinzie noted, watching the three of them. She was still uncertain about the situation, but at least she was not dead yet. The agent decided to hear them out since they had just raided a ship to talk to her.
"Good." Remy put one hand on Pierce's shoulder and he stepped out of the doorway. Two shots later the pair on the jet ski splashed into the water.
"Damnit, woman!" Pierce moaned. "I had it under control."
"Just like always," Remy said with a grin as she winked at him. "Let's go folks."
The three Saints escorted the "shitty Fed," as Shaundi had dubbed Kensington, to the stern of the ship the Deckers had been holding her on. A raspy sound drew the blonde's attention and Kinzie flinched when Remy shot the man again.
"He was already dying," the redhead noted with an admonishing tone.
"And now he's done. Get on the boat." Remy's tone was cool and detached, one could almost describe it as distant, sociopathic.
When Kensington hesitated, the boss grabbed her arm and all but threw her into the boat.
"Pierce, you're driving. Now, Miss Kensington," Remy began, pressing the agent onto the bench seat at the rear of the boat. "Information, please."
The former agent stared up at the blonde, mostly surprised that McGinnis had used the word please. It was not part of her modus operandi. According to her file the Saints' leader was not one for making requests. Demands? Yes. Requests? Not so much.
"Not until you tell me who told you where to find me," Kensington challenged before she lost her nerve.
Remy nodded at Shaundi who rattled off their rescue and subsequent association with Oleg.
"You all are the ones that got Kirrlov out?"
"You sound surprised," the petite blonde woman observed, as she checked the clip of her pistol.
Kensington knew it for what it was. It was an intimidation tactic; a fairly useful one in most cases, except that Kinzie had just been on a boat full of people using the exact same idea. Hell, she had already nearly died once that night, what did it matter if her killers were wearing glow-in-the-dark rave gear or enough purple to gag the grape ape.
"Actually, given your reputation, I am a bit shocked that you managed to pull it off," Kinzie taunted.
This drew the McGinnis' fuller attention, before Remy had been watching the city and the water, trying to seem disinterested in the target she was trying to coerce. Now her eyes were locked on the former federal agent. It was a miscalculation that the thin redhead regretted almost instantly.
"Boss," Shaundi warned.
Remy looked at her lieutenant. "I'm not going to shoot her, yet. Oleg says she could be useful. I'll give her a chance."
"You'll give me a chance," the former fed scoffed, offended at the notion that of all people Remy McGinnis was suggesting that Kinzie needed to prove her usefulness.
"Girl, are you crazy?" Pierce chimed, glancing back at her.
"Look, Kinzie. I don't care if you know who I am or not. What you should realize is that the three of us just cut through about two dozen Deckers to drag your ass off that boat. I realize that they are just cyber geeks with automatic weapons, but not a lot of people in my line of work would do that for an FBI agent that got tossed out on their ear."
"That was-"
The boss shook her index finger from side to side, staring at the agent. "Ah, ah, ah. I wasn't finished. It is impolite to interrupt the person with the very powerful handgun," Remy reminded in a tone so calm it was menacing. "Now, as I was saying. We got you out on good faith. I personally think that deserves a little consideration in return. Oleg seems like a pretty stand up guy. He says you're good and that you could be a valuable resource. So, it's your choice really."
The sound of a round being chambered was ominous, and it also served to show that there was another option. Kinzie's night could proceed as the Deckers planned or she could take the offer the boss made her.
-4-
Coercion had quickly turned to friendship and respect. Kinzie had not actually anticipated that switch. Accepting an offer at gunpoint on a boat speeding away from the site of a slaughter had been an act of self-preservation. But shortly thereafter the boss loosened the reigns she initially set on Kensington. For the first several days, she felt more like a prisoner in the penthouse than one of the Saints, but once she proved herself, the boss loosened the security and gave the computer genius more freedom.
McGinnis set her up in a warehouse and put a patrol outside Kensington's place to keep her safe, and they were not allowed in Kinzie's inner sanctum until she allowed it. Then the former agent realized that whenever she needed anything it was merely a matter of asking. After working together for a while, Kinzie found the boss was much more malleable than she had been they met initially. That first night there was black and purple. Within a matter of weeks, Kinzie and Remy were on good terms, she actually felt like a Saint and not a coerced prisoner. At one point she wondered if it was Stockholm Syndrome or something like it. Oleg had found that hilarious, and eventually so did Kinzie.
"Yeah, Boss, I remember," the redhead said, glancing over at the person she now considered one of her closest friends.
"You felt trapped," Remy noted.
"I was trapped, you had guards on me."
The boss shrugged slightly as she gulped down a generous swallow of water in an attempt to combat the dryness of the bar she had polished off. "Yes, but you did try to sneak out."
"You basically told me I could help or die."
"I never said that," Remy replied, gesturing at the programmer with her half empty bottle. "You inferred it."
"So you mean you would have let me go?"
Another shrug, paired with a little wince. "Not sure. I was in a desperate spot and still really pissed, even though we had already bowled over Loren."
Kinzie narrowed her eyes at the shorter blonde.
"Look, it was a fucked up period. I was working out some issues. And yes, I might have insinuated that I would have shot you on that boat. But it was not the plan. I kind of figured that if I went that far you'd cave."
Kinzie's mouth dropped. "You played me?"
"Of course I did. Don't act so shocked. I do it all the time, to pretty much everybody."
"Not to me!"
"Anymore," the boss corrected nonchalantly.
"You know, sometimes I hate you."
Remy laughed as she stood and crossed the room. "Love you too, Miss Kensington," she said, throwing a little wave over her shoulder. "And try to get some sleep."
"You too, Boss," the computer genius replied.
-5-
McGinnis really did hope that Kinzie would listen to her and leave the console soon, though she knew it was just as likely that her friend would remain up there doing whatever it was she was doing for a few hours or more, if Kinzie let herself get distracted. Remy stopped asking CID, Kensington, and Miller what they were doing except in the barest sense, but even then all three of them would undoubtedly veer off into discussions that made desperate for a bottle of Excedrin. While she was not a complete technological failure, the boss was an amateur at best. Keith was dead on, she had next to no clue how to program her DVR, despite this, however, she knew enough to get by, though a great deal of her scant knowledge came as a result of the influence of Shaundi and Kinzie. Both women had taken it upon themselves to educate Remy beyond the high-tech weaponry she was familiar with and ingratiated her to the use of other devices of a less blatantly lethal capacity.
The crowning achievement had been when Kinzie got one of those electronic book programs on the boss' phone. Remy usually hoarded books and would lock herself away for hours to read. When the former fed discovered this she earned a metric-fuck-ton of brownie points by boosting the device's memory and giving the boss a virtual library in the palm of her hand. It meant she could sneak her favorite pastime anywhere and everywhere with no one being the wiser. It was one of those pursuits McGinnis hid, because it did not fit the expectation of her narrowly-defined reputation.
The boss rubbed at the tightness in her neck as she leaned into the doorway of the little rumpus room. Pierce was stretched out on the sofa with his hat over his face and Shaundi was awkwardly laid up in the two chairs in the room. Not seeing Keith among them meant he was probably holed up in the bridge.
There is no way I'm sleeping on the pool table again, the boss told herself, surveying the darkened room considering her options. There was also no way in hell she was going near the little love nest that CID had set up for himself. One of the issues she had with the creepy AI was that he reminded her of those guys that wandered around Sunnyvale in their trench coats and fuzzy slippers. Remy was fairly certain that on his planet the AI was probably that guy, flashing his junk to passersby.
When she ducked into the minimalist bathroom, she locked the panel by the door before she started running the water in one of the sinks. Sponge baths sucked, but the last few attempts any of them made at rigging a shower had failed pretty miserably. She was pretty sure she could get one set up, but they just had not happened across the right parts yet for her to make it happen.
While she distracted herself with possible ways to get them something even remotely resembling a usable shower, Remy lathered up her hands with a bar of soap then rubbed it through her hair. It was the only soap they had found so far, so they all made due. It knocked the grime off, and it did not smell like Ivory. Little miracles, right? Rinsing out her long hair, she considered just shaving it all off again, for about the fifth time since the Zin invasion. But when she eyed her reflection she remembered why she would never do that again-the one time she had, Remy realized just how much she looked like her father, Liam McGinnis. The only part of her she got from her mother was the woman's height and her blonde hair, everything else was all Liam-everything.
Turning away from the mirror, Remy scrubbed up quickly. The slick feeling that stuck to her flesh despite the rinsing and scrubbing made her skin crawl. She resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to find a way to rig up even a piss-poor version of a shower or she was going to wind up killing someone.
The ship was not as bad as it could have been it was rather large, and there were parts of it they still had not managed to get into. Priorities. Remy had set everything else aside in favor of getting back anyone they could find. Once her people were out of their Zin-created virtual prisons, she could deviate attention to other things. As it was, everyone had managed to find their own space and people did not feel stacked on top of one another, at least until it was time to grab some sleep. Then it was every man for themselves. She peeked back into the common room, but there was no change. Every non-metal surface save one was claimed.
Having already tried out the pool table and determined that the felt did not help the hardness of the wooden surface she recalled the sofa in the cargo bay. She mulled the option over with great hesitation. The reminder of a kindness paid, spurred the errant thought. A desperate thought, she knew. Fuck it. Sleep is sleep.
Honestly Remy expected to find their resident self-proclaimed cyber god sprawled out across the beige-and-brown-plaid surface hugging his little handheld like a security blanket, but when she entered the bay it was dark, silent, and empty. Unsure where Matt might be, or if he was coming back any time soon, she opted to err on the side of decent human being. She was tired and sore, just the way she always felt after tangling with the simulation, and she really just needed a half-comfortable place to steal a few hours of sleep before she had to make CID's digital existence flash across his processors.
Remy kicked off her shoes and sat on one side of the couch, tucking her feet under her and wrapping her arms around herself. There was not enough comfortable space on the ship for her to sprawl out, and since she was invading someone else's territory, she opted not to be a total cunt about it. Wriggling in an attempt to find a comfortable spot, she recalled the springs in the sofa had a vengeful streak. Once she found a place where she was no longer being stabbed in the spine, she started wishing for a book.
Sleep never came easy for Remy. Before Zinyak came along and added some new nightmares to the playlist, her mind was already brimming with enough horror to make most people opt for drooling in a padded cell. Sometimes reading helped calm the demons long enough for her to get to sleep. But silence always seemed adverse to restful sleep for her. At that moment, she would have killed for anything-some Dr. Seuss or a haiku, whatever. Just a few words to pull her mind out of the place she was in.
With a heavy sigh she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. Fuck! Pierce is right this thing does smell like someone's grandmother died on it. She shivered for a moment, until she heard the light clap of bare feet on the deck. She opened her eyes and met the electric blue gaze of the person she had expected to find there when she entered.
"How's it going, Matt?" she asked without realizing until she said it quite how tired she sounded. She could not remember a recent time when her voice sounded quite that week. Aww, shit, she thought when she noticed the little shift in his brow.
Miller was not so oblivious and self-absorbed as most gave him credit for. Well, he was, but since joining MI-6 he seemed to have developed a few more skills in the art of perception. And Remy was certain he read the mere seconds of mortality she displayed.
The long-time leader of the Saints was not foolish enough to think herself immortal, but she had found that it always helped when people, including her own, wondered if there was a chance that she just might be. She guessed that most people figured she had signed some kind of compact with Satan himself, or so the tabloids and her opponents said. Remy did not run around like Samuel L. Jackson, a la The Long Kiss Goodnight, yelling, "You can't kill me, motherfuckers!" Though once or twice she had said it tauntingly in the heat of the moment, but it was never meant as any kind of true claim to immortality; she used it as more of a jeer directed at the failures of whoever was aiming to kill her and doing poorly at it.
Hell, even in her current situation, she, more than the rest of the crew, was entirely aware of just how fragile her mortality was. But the difference was the boss did not advertise it, could not advertise it. Remy did not get to hide in alcoves, or complain that past versions of herself were haunting her, or whine about people and things from her past trying to kill her. She just had to do something about it, all of it. And everyone needed to believe in the idea that she could do something about Zinyak, the simulation, their still missing friends, and maybe even Earth. Remy was also aware that in that one slip with Matt, she might have just jeopardized that fragile construction.
"Didn't mean to invade," she said with a short chuckle at her own poor word choice. "I couldn't handle another round on the pool table again. That felt offers a false sense of implied comfort and every other non-metal surface seems to have been claimed."
"There's always-"
"No one is stupid enough to voluntarily lose consciousness in a room with CID, least of all me," she interrupted.
Matt laughed. It was clipped and nervous. Remy could not be sure why he still seemed anxious around her. She felt they had already hashed out him trying to kill her, and to his favor his attempts had been some of the most creative and original to date. But they had already talked about all this and she thought she made it clear she harbored no grudge about it. The boss figured that would have offered some relief to his nerves. Then she wondered if maybe he was picking up on her vibe, reading her own struggle interacting with him; it was a possibility she did not really want to consider. She would just have to try harder to keep it under wraps
"Tired?" he asked, cautiously crossing to the console he had set up in the bay so he could get away from, well, everything, and still be useful.
Her eyes moved from him to the sofa and back. He seemed to read the non-verbal cue and took a seat. "Tired doesn't begin to cover it. I still can't fathom how I can feel so completely drained after those damn sessions. I mean literally, I feel sore."
"Part of it is psychosomatic."
Remy stopped rolling her stiff shoulders and looked over at him with a trace of exasperation.
Miller shook his head and laughed. "Basically it is just the way your mind and your body are reacting to the stress of the whole situation. You know that old saying that it's all in your head."
"Screw you."
"I didn't mean it like that," Matt replied. He shifted, turning toward her. "The simulation is almost entirely a mental reaction, while the body lies dormant in the dock. So your mind is doing all this work and all these things. You feel sore, because your brain thinks your body should feel sore after running for miles, jumping over cars, and beating alien constructs to death with your bare hands, and everything else you tend to do in there."
"You could have said that in the first place," she chided.
"I did."
She laughed lightly, shaking her head. "I swear. You and Kinzie. Any idea how CID is doing?"
"You mean on locating Asha?"
Remy closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the sofa. "Let me guess. Shaundi?"
"Pierce figured having stood between you and CID was his life-threatening act of the day."
"He was probably right," she replied, rubbing her hands over her face.
"So is the bot, right?"
"About?" she asked, from under her hands.
Matt was quiet long enough that Remy turned her head and looked at him. He was fidgeting with his tie.
"So what is CID's theory?"
"That you're worried." He finally looked over at her, eyes bright and curious, then added, "About me."
It was her turn to try and derive a response. "I'm worried about all of us. And Asha would be a boon. Someone with her training and skill set would be very valuable. Useful," Remy stated, looking down at her arms as she recrossed them over her chest. It was not quite untrue, but it was not the fully unclothed truth of her motives. She felt it sounded probable, hell, she was convinced, mostly.
"Yeah. You're right," Matt replied, the tone in his voice suggested a hint of disappointment. When she looked at him, he refused to meet her gaze. "You should get some rest, in case CID finds something."
Remy watched him walk out. There was no other choice. How would she even stop him? Yes, she was worried about him. Yes, she wanted him to feel like part of the crew. And, yes, there was more to it than all of that, but she could not own up to any of it, least of all to him. Three years earlier, Remy had chosen this line; it was not an easy one to walk, but she had been doing it so long it felt like second nature.