First (5 page)

Without Blame

Socrates

M
y old leather chair creaks
as I lean back and stare out at the stars through the bay window in my study.
How could I have missed it? What kind of man doesn’t recognize his own son?
He was my child, my Adam. How could I not know who he was?

The shrill ringing of the phone startles me, and I nearly tip all the way back in my chair.
Be careful, old man. Wouldn’t do to break a hip at this stage.

Maggie, my housekeeper, knocks softly on the heavy oak door. “Sir, George Eliot’s on the phone from the Smith, and she wants to talk to you.”

“I’ll take it in my office. Thank you.” Using my hands for leverage, I force my weakening legs to bear my weight. The light briefly catches on the faded bar code marring the inside of my left wrist. It was Stephen’s
.
Many have them removed. It’s strongly encouraged as a healthy step toward starting a new incarnation, but I never have. Someone sacrificed his or her future so that I can help create a better one for everyone, and every time I see those strange lines, almost alien in color, I am reminded of that.

“Would you like some help?” Her brown eyes soften as she watches me struggle.

“No, my dear. I’m all right.”

She nods, and her weather-lined face wrinkles into an exasperated smile. After nearly forty years of service, she knows when I’m lying. Ben stretches, gets up, and trots to my side, leaning against me until I grab his harness. He knows, too.

“Good boy.” His tail thumps, and I dig my crooked hands into his thick coat.

My office is decorated much like the rest of the house with dark, antique wood-paneled walls and rich, thick curtains. Glowing lights gleam from recessed ports along the walls and ceiling. With a simple voice command, screens silently slide down from the ceiling, and a high-powered console rises from a desk made to resemble aged teak.

I lower myself into a white leather chair that predates my aged body by a good one hundred and fifty years. My knees protest with a loud, cracking sound. I pick up the old-fashioned handset.

“Hello?”

“Socrates? How are you feeling?” Eliot’s voice is anxious; we haven’t talked since the exhibit opened.

“Better, now that I’m home.” I exhale and force myself to relax, rolling my neck, hearing the crack of old bones protesting.

“You know, if you’d just gotten the vaccine like everyone else, you would be just fine.”

“I know, I know, but as foolish as it sounds, I don’t trust the new technologies.”

“You were a product of new technology once, my love. Back then, you were the apple of the scientific community’s eye. Of course there wasn’t a cure for cancer back then. But now, well, everyone gets one, Soc. It would have saved you all this trouble.” She’s frustrated, and I don’t blame her. I tend to be a stubborn old man. “Demosthenes asked me if you were going to request a med-ex permit.”

“A Medical Exemption Permit? For what, chemotherapy? You know they made that illegal over a hundred years ago. Besides, doctors never grant those if you’re over eighty. It costs more for the treatment than to take a new body. Or, well, die if you’re not a First. Most people don’t have much working use left after that age. At any rate, it’s too late now. At my age, the doctors would just tell me to take a Second anyway, which is what I’m going to do. No use fixing the old body if there’s a newer, upgraded model.”

“I thought they gave you at least six months?”

“They did. I think I’m just feeling my age. Maybe I’m just cranky, finally going crazy after all these years. There are no rules, no medical textbooks for what people should be like, mentally, at my age.”

Silence. “It’s all right to be angry at yourself for what happened at the museum.” Her voice is a quiet hum over the suddenly echoing telephone line.

I shake my head, the abrupt motion setting off more aches and pains. “I thought we were talking about the cancer?” She doesn’t respond. “Besides, what kind of father doesn’t recognize his own son, Eliot?”

“A father who hasn’t seen his child for over four hundred years.”

“That’s no excuse! If nothing else, heavens, I lived in his body for longer than he did. I looked in the mirror and saw his face every day for nearly seventy years. Every. Single. Day. That face should have been as recognizable as my own.”

“It was an honest mistake, my love. I don’t think anyone else noticed.”

I open the top drawer of my desk and pull out a pair of old, metal dog tags and run my fingers over their softened edges.

“It was merely a terrible shock. You haven’t been feeling well, and you didn’t expect to see anything like that in the museum.” Eliot tries to sooth me, and if she were here, I imagine she’d be stroking my hair or holding me loosely in her arms.

I clear my throat. “That still doesn’t make it right. He was my son. My first child. How could I forget him?” I rub my thumb in a circle around the face. God, five hundred years later and she still has the power to take my breath away.

“I wouldn’t worry too much, my dear. It’s probably a combination of the stress and your illness.”

With a sigh, I slip the dog tags back into my drawer. “Next, you’ll say I’m just getting old.”

“You’re only eighty-eight. That’s hardly prehistoric. Besides, no one can be expected to remember everything.”

“When you measure time by the number of lives you’ve started over, of course eighty-eight isn’t a lot.” I chuckle, the raspy sound deep and gritty even to my own ears. “If this was my first eighty-eight, I’d hardly be a toddler. But it’s not. And it’s not just his face that I’ve lost, either. Somewhere deep inside of me, I know that Adam was an amazing child, but I couldn’t give you three reasons why. I can’t tell you what his first words were, or when he learned to walk, or even what he wanted to be when he grew up. That picture there, that one little picture in the museum, is one of only two photographs that still exist from my first life, and I didn’t even realize it was missing. I even probably took the damn thing, and I didn’t remember it existed until I saw it in that display.”

On the other end of the line, I imagine Ellie biting her bottom lip, a habit she’s had since I married her the first time. “Maybe.” She pauses, choosing her words carefully. “You’re just cutting it too close. Perhaps you should have picked a Second earlier. The doctors said the drugs can only slow down the disease, not stop it, and some might have negative side effects on your mind.”

“I’ve cut it close before with no ill effects. Remember? That’s what we all used to do. It’s only a recent trend to choose Seconds so early. We always used to wait until the last minute before picking a new body, and you know me, I refuse to take the first Second I see. It’s got to be the right one.”

“It’s always been about chemistry with you, Soc.” She chuckles. “You know it doesn’t really matter, right?”

“I know.” I pause. “But for some reason, it’s important to me that we click.”

“Always the romantic one. When are you heading back to Washington?” Maggie pokes her head in and mimics drinking a cup of coffee. I nod, so she knows I’d like one, too. I don’t even have to tell her what I’d like in it—nothing—because she knows me so well.

My laugh has an empty, hollow sound, and I slowly lean forward so I’m sitting upright again. My old back doesn’t like that very much. Hell, most of me doesn’t like moving, period. At least my leather chair is as comfortable as eighty years spent molding to the same backside can render it. “No sooner than necessary. It’s nice to be home in Santa Fe. I’ve been travelling so much I’ve barely had any time to relax.”

“You deserve it. The mountains have always been a refuge for you. A balm for your soul. And with the bill coming up—”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind, is that what you’re implying? I know you want it to pass, Ellie. That’s the main reason I’m supporting it.” Maggie brings me a steaming cup of coffee, brewed the old-fashioned way, of course, and sets it on a small wooden coaster she’s picked up from another spot on my cluttered desk. After setting it down, she waits for me to tell her if I need anything else, and I shake my head. She bows her head—I never could train her out of that habit—and leaves the way she came. She’s surprisingly quiet for a woman of her age and girth.

“What, you don’t think it’s the right thing to do? Don’t you think the Texans have been imprisoned long enough?”

I take a sip of coffee barely cool enough to drink, while Ellie continues her tirade.

“You, of all people, should know that what the government is doing is wrong. What they’ve done in the past is wrong. If something doesn’t change, what they will do in the future will be worse.”

“Now you sound like a Lifer,” I quip, unable to help myself. Her silence is my answer.

“Do you want me to come home, or would you rather I wait for you in D.C.?” I can always tell she’s angry with me when her voice becomes formal, stone cold and emotionless.

“Might as well wait there. No sense teleporting over here if you’re just going to go back anyway in a few days.” I let my eyes half close, and I start to drift away on the warmth of the coffee. Maybe Maggie slipped something in it to help me sleep. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“What if I want to see you? Talk to you?” Her voice grows deeper, huskier. I have to chuckle.

“About what? There’s nothing you haven’t seen a million times before.”

“There’s always something new with you, Soc.”

“Aren’t you teaching? I thought the new semester started soon?”
Did she mention this before?
I mentally scratch my head.
No, I would remember her talking about it.

“I decided to take a sabbatical. Maybe I’ll take a cue from you and write a book.” She pauses, but when I let the silence stretch too long, she sighs. “Okay, fine. The board and I came to the decision that it would be mutually beneficial if I took the spring term off.” In her silence, her sadness is nearly palpable. But there’s something else, too, something she’s not telling me.

“Is this in regard to your decision to leave the program?”

“Yes, no. I don’t know. Don’t worry about it. You have more important things going on.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear. You’ve been the most important person in my lives since we met.”

“Flattery can’t change my mind. You know that, right?”

“But—”

She cuts me off. “Let me explain, please.”

“I’m listening.” I steeple my fingers in front of me.

“When Project ReGenesis started, it was portrayed as a way for a select few to live forever so that their talents wouldn’t die when they did. It was a noble calling. Five hundred years later, where are we now? What gifts have I really given the world? Sure, I was the first female president, but there have been six since, and most of them much better candidates than I ever was. Out of all of them, only one took a Second, and she only chose one more lifetime.”

“Stop selling yourself short. Because of you, we were able to build the first moon space station. You paved the way for space travel and exploration for the next two hundred years, Ellie. That’s definitely an achievement.”

“You mean the resort for the rich and famous?” she retorts.

“It’s not your fault NASA ran out of funding. That war took a lot out of us. After it was over, the government had to put all of their money into rebuilding.” Images like old-fashioned snapshots blur through my mind. Ruins, rubble, bodies strewn across the ground. Dust streaked with blood on a child’s brow as he sprawls, unmoving, on the ground. Me, a different me, younger with burnt auburn hair, reaching down, hands shaking, to check his pulse, but there’s nothing there. I never even learned his name. I should have.

“Well, they did a piss-poor job of it.”

“The rebels did a lot of damage.” The dead boy’s hand is curled in a fist that will never open. His fingers will never again reach out to graze a blade of grass or cup a handful of water from a stream for a mid-adventure drink.

“They weren’t the only ones. Our side killed innocents, too.” The boy’s hand fades away. In his place, I see a line of kids, baking under a white-hot sun, waiting to see if any of them would be chosen to die. A little boy, near the end, fidgeting with his new tattoo. His sister trying to protect him, even now.

“Neither side in any war is without blame.”

“Honestly Soc, I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation. It doesn’t really matter. None of the scientific breakthroughs, decisions I’ve influenced, or treaties I’ve written, negate the fact that I’ve killed four kids. Three girls and one boy. Dead, all because I wanted to live forever.”

“Isn’t that what we all want? Besides—” My voice takes on a sullen tone, audible even to me. “It didn’t seem to bother you the last time.”

She pauses, and I imagine her face flushing, the warm tone of her skin turning a darker, deeper red. “Last time was different.”

“How so? What changed in thirty years that didn’t in the last two hundred?”

Silence. “I just… I just can’t do it any more, Socrates. Please don’t ask me again.”

“I’m sorry.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes. “I guess I’m just trying to understand. I know we haven’t been as close as we used to be, with our busy schedules and all, but I never thought you’d want to leave the program. That you’d want to leave me.”

She pauses for so long I wonder if the connection’s been lost, even though that’s supposedly not possible with today’s technology. “I suppose I just don’t want to do this again, get attached to people, watch them get old and die while I live and move on. I can’t take it anymore,” she whispers. I cram the phone to my ear to catch every word.

“So you’re just going to stop, then? Live a normal life and then die?”

“Something like that, except for the normal part. Yale pretty much owns me, since they paid for my last procedure. But you get the gist of it. I’m done. It’s time to let a new generation, one not held back by the past, have a shot.”

Halfway There

Mira

T
ake a deep breath, Mira.
You can do this. He’s just another teacher. It’s not as if you’re a complete idiot.
I twirl the thin ivory porcelain cup around in my hand. It’s almost completely full. Pale blue birds dance along the outer rim, and if I turn the cup fast enough, they fly.

Gerald, the Chesanings’ butler, clears his throat, and I jump, almost dropping the teacup, sloshing the watery liquid over the side. Swallowing my frazzled nerves, I carefully set the cup on the end table next to my chair.

Exhaling slowly, I dart a glance at Gerald, and he scowls at me over his puffy, chipmunk cheeks and heavy hooded eyes. In his starched black and white suit, he sits as stiffly as the flightless birds we read about in school. He’d probably have killed me for wasting tea if Socrates hadn’t picked me as his Second. Maybe my new position does have some perks. My eyes stray back to the cup as a thin, clear ring spreads slowly along the white cloth.

“He’s here.” Gerald’s deep voice is the kind that puts kids to sleep.

I jump from my seat. The chair wobbles behind me, and I quickly snake a hand back so it doesn’t fall over. Gerald rolls his eyes. I guess I’m making all sorts of good impressions today.

The man who must be my teacher barely fits through the doorway, and I recognize him as one of the guys who stood beside Socrates the day I was chosen. He huffs and pants, red-faced, with thinning, shoulder-length sweat-slicked carrot-colored hair plastered to his head. Cosmetic gold-rimmed glasses encircle his beady brown eyes, and he squints as he openly inspects me. He’s wearing an old-fashioned khaki-colored suit with damp stains around the collar and beneath his arms. I’ve always wondered why, with the technology to genetically correct vision and hearing problems, they haven’t done something about sweat, maybe even make it smell better if they can’t stop it completely, but I guess that’s low on their priority list. He carries a paper-thin tablet in one hand, and I’m surprised he doesn’t drop it with all the sweat dripping off of him.

“You must be Mira.” His translucent lips pull into a fake smile. “I am Mr. Flannigan, your teacher from Washington. My job is to get you ready to go to Washington. I will teach you proper etiquette for your interview and the acceptance banquet, as well as the importance of basic manners in general. You see, life in our nation’s capital is very different from life here at your little farm. There are important customs and traditions that must be adhered to. Most of all, I will teach you
not
to embarrass Socrates.” He looks me up and down. “Heaven help me.”

I smooth the palms of my hands flat against my pants.

He narrows his eyes at me. “Is there a problem?”

“Not at all, sir.” I grit my teeth. “It’s just that my mother taught me that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all.”

“Is that so?” A faint smile curves his lips. I purse my lips. “Good.” He nods. “You’re halfway there already.”

Now it’s my turn to smile. Maybe he’s not so bad, after all.

“Do you have any questions?”

“Now that I’m Absolved, will I get my own last name?”

He looks at me in surprise. “What do you mean, girl?”

“Well, as Texans, we take the name of our farm, but you people, you get your own last names. Do I get one now?”

He scratches his head. “I don’t know. That… that’s never come up before. I’ll have to talk to Socrates.” He makes a note on his tablet.

“Umm, I was also wondering what my job will be, exactly. I mean, there are so many rumors going around, but in school they teach us something totally different.”

Mr. Flannigan grunts and lowers his sweaty bulk into one of the spindly wicker chairs, which creaks under his weight. I eye his chair doubtfully as I sit down in the other one.

“What exactly have you been told?” he asks, avoiding my question.

“Well, our teachers say we go and learn from our Firsts, so that when they die, we get to take over where they left off, so that their knowledge can be preserved for another lifetime. That’s why they have a Release ceremony, so we’re released from our past lives and can start our future. We’ll be making history.” A shadow crosses his face, and his thin mouth presses into an even thinner line.

“Is that so?”

“Yes, but I heard something different. Today Alessa, the Chesanings’ daughter, told my brother I was going to die.”

Mr. Flannigan shakes his head. “And you believed her?”

“I… I don’t know. I mean, they wouldn’t do that, right?”

He pauses. “Look at it this way. Do you implicitly trust the source of your information?” I shake my head. “Well, there you go. Your teachers would never intentionally lie to you, would they?” I shake my head again, slower this time. “Good. There you have it. Hold fast onto what you’ve learned throughout your entire life, not the heresy of a spoiled little rich girl.”

“But—”

“No buts, just… just believe what your teachers told you, and you’ll be fine.” Why does he look like he’s in pain when he says that?

A thought hits me. “Are you a First?”

Mr. Flannigan looks shocked at first, then laughs, a deep guttural sound like he’s never heard anything funnier before in his life. “Me? No, of course not.” What’s that in his voice? It’s like he thinks I’m crazy for asking.

“Why not? You’re a teacher, right?”

He shakes his head and folds his hands on his ample stomach. “Much in the same way as your teacher here is. My role is so limited, being a First is… different.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well.” He looks stuck for a minute, like he can’t really find the words. “Firsts are supposed to… they’re supposed to lead the world, help pass on useful knowledge and information that would be lost without them.”

“So what’s Mr. Socrates going to do, teach me all this before he dies?”

Mr. Flannigan tilts his head on his nonexistent neck, like a fat chicken, thinking about going after a worm. “Yes, that’s it. But I can’t tell you any more. It’s not my job. My position is merely to make you more acceptable to those you’ll meet in Washington. I’m not… permitted to speak about anything else.”

Now it’s my turn to look confused. “Why not? I mean, it’s not some big secret, is it?”

He hesitates. “No, of course not. However, the law states that the only one who can give you that information, besides the President himself, is your First, Socrates. You’ll have to ask him, yourself.”

I let out a huff of frustration. “When will I see him next?”

“I’m glad you asked.” He smiles. “In three days you’ll leave this farm forever. You’ll be heading to Washington for a thorough physical evaluation and to be vaccinated.”

“Against what?”

“Everything, silly girl. We can’t have you getting sick now that you’re chosen, can we? There are so many diseases out there in developing countries that modern medicine hasn’t been able to cure yet.”

“Why bother? We were hit last year by a pretty nasty bug, and no one in my family got sick. Obviously, I’m immune.”

“One thing I can tell you is that, in your new position, you’ll be travelling around the world. You’ll be exposed to different cultures and, therefore, a wide variety of diseases from countries less advanced than ours.”

“So why don’t all of us get vaccinated?”

Flannigan shrugs. “There are limited quantities of the more common vaccines from what I understand, and there are so many of you.”

“So what you’re saying is that we’re expendable.”

He shakes his head. “Of course not. The vaccine is also expensive, and since your people don’t travel, the government deemed it unnecessary.”

I stand up and pace between the chair and the window. “Kids die, Mr. Flannigan. Every few years, some new disease hits us and kills a few of the younger or sicker ones, then disappears. I know we’re servants, but almost all of the ones who die are just little kids. Babies in diapers. If they vaccinated us like the free citizens, none of that would happen.”

He opens his mouth, like he’s about to agree with me, then stops.

I turn and face him, hands on my hips. “You talk about Socrates like he’s this all-powerful guy, like the President.” It’s a statement, not a question, but Mr. Flannigan treats it as such.

“Yes, he’s the first of the Firsts, the oldest of them all.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know what that means, but if he’s as great as you make him out to be, he can do this. He can get his hands on some of that medication.”

“The vaccine?”

“Yes. I want enough for all of them. For any disease that might strike the farm. Especially now that I know diseases can be prevented.” I give him the evil eye as I watch his lips stretch. He curtly nods. “They deserve to be safe.”

He settles back in his chair, a faint respect in his eyes. “I don’t know if that’s possible, or whether you’re in any position to make demands, but I’ll ask him.” He holds up his hands when I open my mouth to speak, to tell him that asking isn’t good enough when kids are dying every few years. “You have to understand, Mira, I can’t make any guarantees, okay?”

“All right. I understand.”

“Do you have any other questions?”

I narrow my eyes at him, at his begrudgingly respectful tone, and bite my bottom lip. “Out with it, girl, what else is bothering you?”

“Nothing…” He raises his eyebrows at me. “Okay, fine. But I’m warning you, it’s stupid.”

He lets out a hollow laugh. “Duly noted,” he says, wryly.

“Why am I still here?” My voice is quiet and sounds young, more like Max’s than mine.

“What do you mean?”

“When my cousin was picked, he left immediately.” I shift in my chair, crossing my legs then uncrossing them.

Mr. Flannigan looks out the window. “Well, Socrates likes to give his Seconds time to say goodbye to their families, since they’ll never see them again.” I can feel the blood drain from my face. “Surely you knew that.” I shake my head, for once without words. “Your cousin has been gone what, a couple years, right?” I nod. “Then, you’ve noticed that he hasn’t returned, nor will he ever. It’s against the law for a Second to return home after being Absolved.” His eyes seem sad, creased at the edges.

“Why?”

Flannigan shrugs. “It’s the law, and it’s not my place to question it.”

He’s lying. I can feel it. But why? What good reason could he possibly have to keep this from me?

He clears his throat. “Regardless of that, you will be able to affect a great change as Socrates’s Second that you would never be able to even hope to achieve living here on this farm.” Flannigan touches the thin computer and grimaces. “You’ll have to straighten up, Mira, from what I’ve seen here.” He arches his eyebrows at me over the edge of his glasses. “And according to your file…” He waves the thin tablet at me, and in my mind, I see it arcing through the air as he loses his slippery grip. “You could cause quite a bit of trouble once you get to Washington, and Socrates doesn’t need that.”

I feel myself flush. How would he like if I looked up his past and all of his faults? “I’m not that bad.”

Another faint grin touches his lips. “Let’s start on the first page.” He peers down at the screen. “Leaving the farm without permission. A few times, in fact. Arguing with your teacher. Leaving the farm again.” He looks up at me again. “Looks like you take your little trips quite often. Where do you go?”

I lift my shoulders before dropping them as if it doesn’t matter. “Sometimes I just need to get away. We kind of live in each other’s pockets here.”

“Let’s see. Here’s one for talking back to a supervisor.”

“He was trying to feel me up! This is ridiculous. I can’t believe they wrote that in there. The man had a serious thing for us girls. I’m glad he’s gone.”

“What happened to him?” His face is impassive, but there is a dangerous glint in his eyes that I hadn’t seen before.

“Shipped off to do construction at another farm.” I smile with satisfaction. At least that disaster ended rather well, for our farm at any rate. Now he’s someone else’s problem.

He looks down at the list again. “Skipping a visit and getting three days isolation?” He waits for me to say more, but I don’t elaborate. “Why did you do that?”

“It’s a long story.”

He waits, fingers strumming on his thick, meaty thigh.

I sigh, letting all my breath out in a big whoosh before smoothing my hands on my pants again. A nervous twitch. “All right, fine. Max was caught watching the news, and Alessa turned him in. But Gloria told him to come with them into the house and watch it with them—”

“Max is your brother, right? How old is he?”

“He just turned five.”

Mr. Flannigan nods. “And Alessa and Gloria are…?”

“Spoiled little rich girls,” I say, borrowing his earlier words. I smooth my palms on my pants so I have something to do other than relive that day.

His lips twitch. “Ah yes, and watching any sort of video broadcast is strictly prohibited, so he was punished. What did they do to him?”

“He got one day in the box.”

“The box?”

“It’s a metal box with a slot for food capsules and water tablets because they don’t let you eat or drink anything while you’re in there, and a hole in the corner for you to go… well, you know what I mean. And there are three small holes in the bottom on one side for fresh air. That’s it. It’s torture, especially for a little kid, and Max was only four.”

“Was it worth skipping the visit to stay with him?”

I nod. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat. He didn’t do it on purpose. Like I said, they invited him in there. He never would have gone into the manor on his own. They did it to be mean.”

“Hmmm.” He sets the tablet on the end table, far away from my cup of tea and steeples his thick fingers before him, as if contemplating my words.

“Besides, who throws a four-year-old kid in a six-by-four metal cell anyway? The only light comes from those little holes in the bottom. I spent the whole day talking to him through those air holes so he wouldn’t be alone.”

Flannigan raises his eyebrows. “So then they sentenced you to the box, for helping him.”

“Yes, though I didn’t make him stay with me. He tried, but I made him go home at night. He tried feeding me through the little holes but…” I smile, remembering the mash of composite toast, bugs (because that’s what people in the olden days ate, Max had said, proud of himself for knowing that), and twigs he’d tried to force in there. It wasn’t pretty. Nor did it smell especially pleasant.

“Where were your parents?”

“My mom was working, and my dad’s dead.” I spit out the words as if they were venom sucked from a snake bite. “She didn’t know until after it happened. As the oldest child, I’m supposed to take care of Max, get him ready for school, make sure he doesn’t screw around, that sort of thing.”

“I see. Was that your greatest infraction?”

I look away, the old anger slowly leeching from my system. “According to the Chesanings, yes.”

A faint smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

What is this guy’s deal? Is it his job to dig through my past and find reasons why I’m not qualified? Is that it? Is he looking for reasons to kick me out of the program?
Hope kindles deep inside me. Maybe everything isn’t so hopeless, after all. “Are you going to tell Socrates about all this?”

Flannigan shrugs. “He does expect an update after I’ve met you.”

“Great. Is he going to reject me?”