The Administration Series (261 page)

Cele nudged him gently, having obviously noticed his abstraction. When he glanced at her, she raised her eyebrow and he smiled.

The medic paused fractionally at the exchange, then carried on.

"Right now the tank system is keeping Tarin breathing, or at least helping him to breathe. It's taken over the functions of his brainstem. It's been several days since the last of the oedema subsided and we've finished the matrix layers, which means that now is a good time for us to consider disconnecting the substitute stem system."

"Then what happens?" Philly asked.

"Hopefully, Tarin will keep breathing on his own. All the scans we've taken indicate that he should. There was some damage to parts of his brain, but the regrowth stimulators seem to have worked very well. We've done everything we can to make sure that he's capable of breathing unsupported. The only thing left is to let him try."

Philly nodded. "I need to think about it."

"Take all the time you want,"

Warrick had seen the brain scan results himself. Caillat had been predictably surprised that he knew how to interpret them, so he'd told her about the sim, which shared technology with the ICU tank. They'd talked about the sim for a while, about potential medical implications, while Tarin lay in the tank, unconscious and immobile.

If the tank had been as sophisticated as the sim, they would be able to talk to Tarin and ask him what he wanted. If, that was, the damage to his brain had been limited enough to make that possible.

"If he can't breathe, what then?" Dillian asked.

"This isn't an absolutely irreversible decision," Caillat said. "The autonomic management can be restored, if it's done quickly. But there is a chance that the reactivation will fail at that point. If that happened, we would have to take more drastic measures to directly stimulate the necessary nerves."

"No," Philly said.

"I beg you pardon?" Caillat asked.

Philly was looking at the tank again. She shook her head minutely, her gaze never leaving Tarin. When she spoke again, her voice was barely audible. "I don't want that."

Warrick took a step towards the medic. "She means that if Tarin stops breathing and the brainstem substitution doesn't function again, then it finishes there," he said quietly. "That you'll let him go."

Caillat nodded. "If you could speak up, Ms Wintergreen — for the recording system."

She nodded, then cleared her throat. "Yes. That is what I meant." She nodded again. "I'd like you to do it, please. To switch off the system."

"I'll do it now."

There was nothing to it — a few changes on the screen, with no visible response in the ICU tank, no reaction from Tarin. They waited in silence for long minutes until Caillat turned to them.

"It looks like he's handling the switch well, although you know that I can't make any guarantees." She glanced away for a moment to check the screen. "It will take a few hours until we're absolutely sure, but this was a big hurdle, so we can all be pleased he's cleared it."

"I'll wait," Philly said.

"You're welcome to stay here, of course. I'll have to leave soon, but I'll send in someone to sit with you."

Warrick crossed the last distance to the tank and touched the warm plastic with the palm of his hand. He didn't, he realised, feel as relieved as he'd expected he would. Of course this wasn't any kind of resolution, just one more step on the long journey that could still be cut short. Infections, any one of dozens of other medical dangers, and the outside threats from Sable and Citizen Surveillance that were fortunately still unknown to most of those gathered in the ICU.

A single sob caught his attention, and he turned. Dilly was crying, hand to her mouth to stifle the noise.

"I don't want him to die," she said brokenly. "I don't. He can't. It's not
fair
if he dies."

If only that made any difference.

"He won't die," Philly said firmly in what Tarin had always called 'that damned teacher voice', and Warrick realised that he hadn't seen her cry once since the accident. Did she really believe Tarin would live?

"I want to tell him I'm sorry," Dillian said. "I've said things to him before and — I just want to tell him I love him and it didn't matter, all the rest. I just — " She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I'm sorry, Philly."

She turned away towards Cele, who gathered her in her arms. "You cry, sweetheart. Nobody minds."

"I wanted to tell him I loved him," Dillian repeated, her voice muffled by Cele's shoulder.

"I'm sure he knows," Philly said, and Warrick wondered if he was imagining the deliberate stress on the present tense. "And he loves both of you. He always did, even when you disagreed." Philly looked at Cele. "I think she'd be better somewhere else, don't you?"

"Come on." Cele urged Dilly towards the door. "We can come back tomorrow. Tar's not going anywhere, is he?"

There was a moment of appalled silence, then Dilly started to laugh, still sniffing. "No, he isn't."

Doctor Caillat followed the pair of them out of the room. When the door closed, Philly shook her head, smiling slightly. "She's amazing."

"Cele? Yes, she's certainly that."

"I have to ask you something, Warrick." The smile vanished and she looked directly into his eyes, then lowered her voice to a bare whisper. "Now that it looks as though there might be a chance, is he safe? I heard about the arrests."

"He's safe." Or, at least, I hope to God he is. "Toreth is doing his best to protect him — and all of us. Tar won't be named."

"Because mud sticks," she murmured.

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing." She stood up straighter. "I'll have to thank him, when I have a chance. Which will be strange, don't you think? When I&I will also be responsible for whatever happens to some people I have known for a very long time."

He didn't have an answer to that.

After a solid week of interrogations filling insanely long days, coffee breaks were beginning to feel like the only anchors of sanity in Toreth's world. Except that they were coffee breaks down on the interrogation levels, which were no one's idea of fun. The office levels felt like a ghost town, with locked, empty offices on every corridor. The surviving interrogators made for equally depressing company, since the prime topic of conversation was how fucking useless the new Procedures and Protocols was and how much harder it had made their lives. Predictably, everyone had forgotten that the P&P had saved all their ungrateful necks from Carnac.

When had resister vermin suddenly developed rights? was the most common question he heard. Toreth felt like asking the same thing as he slogged through interrogation after exhausting interrogation. These days a maximum-level waiver was better than nothing, but not by very much.

After he'd sat through one too many interrogator diatribe on how the only hope for I&I was a few good resister attacks to shake up the Administrative Council and give them some backbone, Toreth suggested that the interrogators ought to get together and organise one. He hadn't liked the thoughtful silence that followed.

At least if he was arrested for sedition, the interrogation wouldn't hurt too much.

For his next break, he abandoned the underground levels and headed upstairs. Seeing daylight seemed strange, and so did the greetings from people he passed. He felt tense and strung out, locked into a working mindset. Or maybe it was just a week of talking to prisoners and interrogators, neither of whom were exactly normal company.

Even the General Criminal coffee room seemed wrong. There were too many unfamiliar faces — pool staff, juniors and investigators. However, Toreth spotted Chevril and Mike Belkin standing together by the coffee machine, which looked to be broken again. Kel was poking around inside the open side, keeping up a running commentary that the seniors ignored.

No fucking coffee. Wonderful.

"Afternoon," Chevril said as he approached. "Getting anywhere with your jigsaw girl?"

Still occupied by the afternoon's interrogation, Toreth stared at him blankly. "With my what?"

Chevril rolled his eyes. "With your corporate kidnapping. Did you find all the pieces? Or are you too good to do any actual work like the rest of us these days?"

"I'm slaving my arse off for Cit Surveillance down in interrogation, as you bloody well know. Nagra's running the kidnapping, for what it's worth, and frankly I don't give a toss how it's going."

"All right, all right," Chevril said. "Good God. Ask a civil question . . . " Toreth saw Chevril's gaze flick down to Toreth's left hand, then back up again. "You'd think someone who was living in the lap of luxury would — "

So had Chevril been the source of the engagement ring? The flash of anger caught him by surprise, flaring up out of control almost before he felt it begin. He managed only a moment of resistance before the sounds in the room dimmed and he was moving forward, the surrender to fury feeling so sweet, so right.

Then Mike Belkin caught his arm, fingers digging in hard, and the unexpected contact pulled him back from the edge.

Kel had stopped talking. Chevril was staring at Toreth, open-mouthed. Toreth blinked, wondering what the fuck had happened.

"Toreth?" Belkin asked, his voice low.

He nodded sharply. "I'm fine."

Belkin raised his eyebrows. "Yeah? Because much as I'd love to watch you kick the well-deserved shit out of Chev . . . " He nodded across the room.

To Toreth's astonishment, Tillotson was seated in the far corner, his admin Jenny beside him. How the hell had Toreth missed him when he came in? Too much on his mind.

"Thanks," Toreth said to Belkin. "I owe you."

Belkin released him. "I'll remember."

Toreth turned to Chevril, knowing what was expected. "Sorry about that." He couldn't risk pissing off his oldest allies. "I've not had much sleep for a couple of days."

"Forget it." Chevril still looked a little pale.

"I've fixed the infernal machine," Kel announced slightly too loudly. "Coffee's here for anyone who thinks it's a good idea."

It sounded like a very, very good idea.

Chev and Belkin left him to sit alone. Toreth drank his coffee and brooded for a few minutes until Sara arrived, trotting into the room and looking round anxiously. When Toreth checked, Kel was watching him. The admin gave an apologetic twitch of his shoulders and eyebrows.

Interfering fucker.

As there was no mayhem currently in progress, Sara went to get a coffee. Toreth wondered what she would have done if she'd walked in to find him plastering Chev across the wall.

"Don't ask," Toreth said as she came over.

"I was just wondering where you were." She sat beside him and blew on her coffee. "Being as I didn't see you this morning. Or yesterday evening." She glanced at him sideways. "Were you at Warrick's?"

His first reflexive response was, what the fucking hell has it got to do with you? However, antagonising Sara wouldn't make the best prelude to asking her for yet more unpaid overtime over the weekend.

"No. I slept here." Funny how the chairs that had been so uncomfortable last night felt so good right now. Maybe if he just lay down for . . . he tried to keep in mind the interrogation room bookings he had for the rest of the afternoon and evening. "Probably will tonight, too."

"Are you sure?" She was looking at him with open concern. "How much longer is it going to take?"

"Three days. Maybe two. No, three sounds more like it." And might just kill him. "How's the Justice submission going?"

"I'm processing it as fast as you send the transcripts up."

"I want it ready to send the day I finish."

"It will be." Not surprisingly she was frowning, as he'd given her the same unnecessary reminder every day since the interrogations started. "You know, it'd be a lot easier if you'd tell me what's going on."

"I just need you to slant the transcripts the way I said and not ask any questions."

"Look, I already know it's about Warrick's brother, and Citizen Surveillance is involved." She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Is it something to do with
him
? Carnac?"

Which was just about the last name he needed to hear. "Which part of 'don't ask any questions' didn't you understand?"

"Okay. No questions." And there was the same tight tone in her voice that had started to really piss him off lately. "I understand." Judging by her close scrutiny, there seemed to be something utterly fascinating in her coffee.

"Sara, it's not — Sara, look at me."

She lifted her gaze from her mug, already looking guilty. And
frightened
, shoulders hunching to protect herself from . . . what? Him? And that prodded the rousing anger again, because after all this time, she of all people ought to know better.

"I'm sick of this shit," he said. He lowered his voice. "What are you expecting me to do? Smack you into the middle of next week because you shot your mouth off to Carnac about my fucking parents?"

After so long downstairs, he couldn't stop himself from cataloging her responses — knuckles whitening as she gripped the mug, her eyes wide and horrified because everything she didn't want exposed was being laid out.