Spilling Guts

Part 111 - "Who Died?"

In Main Tech, Beni tossed her and Reese's empty soda cans into Will's blue recycle bin. Reese resettled the icepack over his knuckles, sulking from his most recent session of punching a bag under Cetz's instruction. It wasn't enough Cetz wanted him to practice boxing, but he had to use both hands.

"My hands are instruments to my art!" Reese had protested as Cetz wound tape between his fingers. "I need them to remain intact to do what I do best!"

"Whining?" Cetz had shot back.

Beni, who had been watching on the sidelines because she needed entertainment, barely kept in her snicker. But the comment rang a bell in the back of her mind.

The cold cream, time with his rabbit, and ice hadn't been enough to break Reese's look of utter misery.

"It's like being back in elementary physical education. Beni. Except you can't hide behind the tallest child to get out of doing the monkey bars."

"I thought you were the tallest child?" said Beni.

"Semantics."

Because of his sulking, their second lunch had consisted of vending machine comfort food; over-processed, over-sugared snack cakes and crunchy, salty potato chips that left orange dust on Beni's fingers. Reese ate his chips with a fork.

Beni shook the last of the sour cream and onion chip-dust out of the bag and into her mouth, chewing a bit before talking for the sake of "manners". "Reese?"

"Hm?"

"Why are we being punished?"

"I'm being punished because Louis made a choice and I have to suffer the consequences."

"Not that. Why are we stuck at our desks doing paperwork same as Will and Louis when we didn't do anything wrong?"

"That is a good question." Reese nodded in thought, a lock of red hair flopping over his forehead. "We did exactly what Cetz told us to do in California, minus Watch One absconding with our resident blond burr. We did not get into a fight."

"Not with each other. Other people were free game."

"Correct. I can hazard a guess that the casework coming through Watch Two requiring field agents has been..." Reese attempted to turn his hand in a gesture of flippancy, and then winced and put it back under ice. "Slow?"

"I think Cetz is trying to finagle something."

"Finagle?"

"Yeah, the same way I have to bang and shimmy the vending machine to get what I want. Cetz is banging and shimmy-ing us to get something done."

"I could do without the banging." Reese held up his hand, the knuckles red and swollen. "He could just ask. At least our inboxes aren't as dire as Louis'."

They both looked over at Louis' desk. The towers of patents had taken up the profile of a precarious cityscape. Beni and Reese had taken bets to which of the towers would fall first. Reese had won three bags of skittles thanks to a deft hand and a few rolled up pills of paper. Beni had won two bags of peanut butter M&Ms with a small but dense paper airplane.

This late in the day they hadn't expected Louis to show up at the paper cityscape of his desk, looking like a reaper. He wore black on black, a charcoal tie wound around his left hand and collar open.

"Whoa," drawled Beni. "Who died?"

Louis grimaced at them both. Without his usual sunglasses, Reese could see a bit of red on Louis' eyelids. A sign of crying or stress. He nudged Beni in the side.

"What?" Beni then got the hint. "Oh. Sorry."

Louis had his hand on the back of the desk chair, as if contemplating pulling it out and sitting down. "Where's Will?"

"He was called in sick by Rachel. Said he caught a bad cold."

"Right. Cold." He took a long look at his desk. "You two okay?"

"We're... fine," said Beni.

"In good health, mostly," added Reese, lifting the ice pack.

How long are you going to drag that metaphorical cross? wondered Beni.

"Right. Good." Louis nodded and let go of the chair. "Thanks for the info."

And then he walked away.

Beni's neck tilted as she followed the course of Louis' black clad back across Main Tech and towards the labs. "That was odd."

"Indeed. He thanked us. And sounded sincere."