The Administration Series (265 page)

Not forgetting the infamous evening of pool, of course.

"Will you be doing any shooting?" Toreth asked.

"No. I'll be needed constantly for the technical parts. It has to go quickly and smoothly. Besides, I've never even fired a gun." Warrick shrugged. "Perhaps I should learn, but I try not to dwell too much on the unsavoury side of corporate life. I pay other people to do that for me."

"Okay, then. I'm on." Then, just because of the earlier conversation, he added, "I'll be going to the gym first."

"I'm sure you will. There's no need for you to be there first thing in any case. It'll take several hours to set up and calibrate." Warrick smiled again. "Come for lunch. I'm treating everyone to reasonable caterers to compensate for hijacking their weekends. And then afterwards you can show me how well you handle a gun."

The air in the large underground firing range was cool, and Toreth was glad he'd brought his jacket. Considering that people fired guns in there daily, the place was remarkably clean and well decorated. No doubt the company ran training courses for corporate higher-ups who didn't share Warrick's aversion to guns. The setup was familiar from the Int-Sec training section: targets and the stopping wall behind them, a row of cubicles across the end of the room. However, he could have guessed its purpose blindfold; the smell of propellant, oil and hot metal was unmistakable.

For the moment, there were no weapons in sight, because the SimTech staff were everywhere in the room, placing sensors and running leads for the equipment that would take neural readings from the volunteers.

When Toreth had arrived, Warrick had nodded to him, then returned to a conversation with a woman Toreth recognised from his visits to SimTech. He remembered her because she made him think of all the witnesses over the years who had described someone as 'average'. These so-called 'average' people usually turned out to have at least half a dozen features that ought, in Toreth's opinion, to have been obvious to a blind drunk. Whereas this woman really
was
average, to a degree that was itself noteworthy.

Average and not at all Warrick's type, which meant he could spend a few minutes contemplating her spectacular dullness with little more than detached curiosity. Finally, the conversation broke up and he let his gaze move on.

Relaxed by the morning at the gym, Toreth didn't mind waiting. He lounged against the wall, watching the technicians scurrying around setting up equipment. It made a nice change to have the leisure to watch other people working. He kept one eye on Warrick as he moved calmly through the chaos, handing out orders and curt praise.

Building the place underground had been a clever — if expensive — idea, bypassing all sorts of regulations to allow the setting up of a full-size range in the heart of the corporate district. As he waited, Toreth wondered idly what they charged for training, and what they'd be gouging SimTech for the hire of the whole place for a day.

As the clock on the wall crawled slowly towards noon, he detected a change in the room. The activity wound down slowly, with people forming into small groups, chatting. After another ten minutes or so, Warrick moved to the centre of the room and called for silence.

"As some of you have so astutely spotted — " he glanced at the first group of technicians to have stopped work, who tried to melt behind each other, " — it is lunchtime. We'll break for one hour, to allow the equipment to bed in. Please don't come back before then; I don't want any sensors disturbed."

When the last of the technicians had cleared from the room, Warrick was still engrossed in a screen linked to a square, matte black box that Toreth thought was the central neural scanner control.

"I thought we were going for lunch," Toreth said.

"In a moment. I have one or two things I'd like to check first."

Having had previous experience of Warrick's 'moments', Toreth adjusted his expectation of lunch down to a hasty sandwich in about fifty minutes' time, and left Warrick alone in the vague hope that it would speed things up.

A cabinet on the side wall held an assortment of weapons-related junk. Toreth poked through it idly, pausing when he found a small plastic bottle. The label read 'gun oil' and the small print below classified it as nontoxic. He knew that without checking, because he recognised the brand from years back.

"You can fuck with this stuff," Toreth said, tilting the bottle to watch the thin oil coat the inside. "I&I sent a bunch of the juniors on a training exercise run by the Service. God only knows why — I've been at I&I for fifteen years and I've never needed to know how to light a fire and build a shelter under a sodding bush. It was the middle of winter too. Everything was ankle-deep in mud, and it was fucking
freezing
, so we had to keep warm somehow. You know what the funny thing was? Every single one of us independently smuggled in booze but no one thought to bring lube. Fun days."

'Buggers can't be choosers', someone had said, which had seemed a lot funnier at midnight when he was out of his skull.

"Sounds absolutely delightful," Warrick said with heavy sarcasm. "Doesn't it sting?"

"Not really. It's synthetic oil, plus something to stop you going rusty." He was about to drop the bottle back into the box when he changed his mind and put it in his pocket. "Where are the guns?"

"Over there." Without looking up, Warrick waved to a metal door set flush in the wall. "It should open to your iris scan."

The recess held an extensive and impressive collection, including a couple of semiautomatic rifles that Toreth hoped he wouldn't be expected to fire. His lessons for those had been a long way in the past. The handguns he was more familiar with. He wondered where the ammunition was — not in the same place as the weapons, which was sensible. In any case, if Warrick didn't want the sensors disturbed, that probably meant shooting was out until after lunch.

"Up to standard?" Warrick asked from right behind him.

Toreth managed to control his surprise well enough not to embarrass himself by jumping a foot into the air. "Rule one," he said testily. "Don't sneak up behind armed people."

"You aren't armed." Warrick moved him aside and surveyed the cabinet. "Mm. They're beautiful, aren't they?"

"That's not the word I'd use. I've seen what the bastards can do."

"Well designed, then. Objects designed to perform a function, and to do it well, are always appealing." Warrick glanced at him. "To an engineer, that is. Technology has its own aesthetic."

"Try having some fucker pointing one at you in anger and see how aesthetic that feels, that's all I'm saying. They're not toys." Toreth unlocked a catch and picked up an automatic pistol, feeling the weight. It fitted his hand well. He tilted it, watching the dull shine of the light on the black metal. Spotless condition, and top of the range — just the sort of thing to appeal to corporates.

He tested the action of the slide, then thumbed the button to pop up the small sight screen at the back of the gun.

Warrick hadn't said anything more, but Toreth could feel him watching.

"I'll show you how it works later, if you like," Toreth said. "Piece of piss. The gun does all the aiming and puts the result up on the screen. I've tried firing something with old-fashioned physical sights and it's bloody hard work."

Turning, he scanned slowly around the room, pleased by the steadiness of his aim. On the screen, the virtual sight dot brightened and dimmed to indicate range, shrinking and expanding to show the estimated shot spread pattern. When he reached the firing range and the cutout target, the screen outlined the human shape in white. The gun must have been set up for range practise, because no decent targeting system would mistake a cold, flat figure for a real person. He moved the gun over the torso, watching the sighting dot change from a green 'on target' to a red 'vital hit' indicator. Red is dead, as instructors were usually fond of saying.

"This is practically sim stuff," Toreth said. "If you were Service, you'd have an eyepiece attached to your helmet to generate a retinal heads-up display. Or if you're really serious, you can get an implant chip that'll feed the information straight into your optic nerve. Just your kind of thing."

No response. Toreth looked round to find Warrick watching him with an expression Toreth couldn't decipher.

"What?" Toreth asked.

"It's strange, but it looks different when you're holding it."

"Yeah?" Toreth lowered his arms and thumbed the sight back down. "Different how?"

"It's . . . " And he was practically glazing over on the spot, the very speed of the reaction setting off a hungry heat in Toreth's groin. With an obvious effort, Warrick gathered himself to reply. "It looks like it's alive. No," he corrected himself. "It's that . . . it
is
functional now. It's . . . "

"Dangerous?"

Warrick nodded, a single sharp movement, never looking away from the gun. "Dangerous."

"Want to watch me fire it?"

He'd expected a quick affirmative, but Warrick tilted his head a fraction, considering carefully. "I don't know," he said at length. "I really don't. In any case, you can't — the sensors are . . . "

Toreth brought the gun up slowly, Warrick's gaze following it until it was too close and his eyelids dropped closed. With his empty hand, Toreth cupped Warrick's face, steadying it, not letting him pull back as he stroked the gun down his cheek. His lips parted slightly, his eyes flickering behind the closed lids, and Toreth grinned. So pliant and willing, so incredibly fuckable — there was nothing left now of the calm, authoritative corporate director who had sent his staff off to lunch.

The sheer fucking
weirdness
of Warrick's sexual kinks never failed to entertain Toreth. Or to turn him on. He moved the gun round, over Warrick's lips, and he jerked his head away slightly. Toreth leaned in and kissed him, the gun cool against the side of his mouth. Warrick was already breathing quick and shallow. He tasted of coffee and a very faint — maybe imaginary — trace of metal.

"You really can fuck with gun oil," Toreth said as he pulled back.

After a fraction of a second, Warrick nodded. "I believed you."

"Uh-huh." Toreth turned the gun over in his hand. "Will it take you long to finish checking the kit?"

"I'm finished now," Warrick said with deadpan seriousness.

Warrick watched in silence as Toreth went over and dropped the bar on the door. For once, their semipublic fucking didn't have to run a real risk of discovery, which would make for a leisurely exploration of this new scenario.

Toreth returned, catching Warrick by the elbow as he passed him, and guided him over to the nearest firing station. He laid the gun on the bench, which was at a perfect height for fucking over. Toreth wondered how often it had been used for illicit purposes. He knew a few people at I&I who'd said that firing guns turned them on. It had never done much for him, but there was no accounting for taste.

"Take your shirt off and unfasten your trousers," Toreth said.

The shirt he folded and placed on top of his own jacket in the next station, because he was planning to get plenty of oil around. He pulled Warrick's trousers down to mid-thigh, exposing him and hampering his movement, and the shiver that went through Warrick would be awareness of both of those.

"Bend over there and get yourself comfortable, because we're going to be here for a while."

Warrick hesitated. "The technicians will — "

"Think you're busy double-checking their work, because you're such a fucking perfectionist. They won't think you're in here getting fucked within an inch of your life."

Warrick turned away and settled down on the bench, bracing his elbows.

"Don't move," Toreth said, "unless I tell you to move. Don't touch yourself."

"Yes."

And that was it — this had to be the record shortest time for persuading Warrick to fuck in public. The cap of the bottle put up more resistance until he finally found the trick to twisting it. He coated his fingers in the cool oil, then leaned on the bench beside Warrick, in the perfect position to watch his face as he felt the first touch of fingers against him.

Warrick's mouth tightened, lips pressing together as his jaw clenched. Toreth teased him, just barely popping the tip of his finger in and out of the ring of muscle. This was an old game, familiar except for the surroundings. Toreth worked his finger deeper with torturing slowness, rewarding stillness with a few more millimetres' penetration, punishing movement with a withdrawal. Under any circumstances it drove Warrick mad, and today it seemed to be particularly effective.

Finally he was working one finger all the way in, quick and deep, spicing it with a twist that had Warrick panting and shivering with the effort not to move his hips into the thrusts. Toreth waited for the first sign of relaxation, the first hint that Warrick was regaining control, then drove a second finger in hard beside the first.

Warrick clenched round his fingers, the muscles in his back writhing as he struggled to keep motionless.

"Bastard," he breathed.

"Now you know why the gym is a good thing," Toreth said. "Because I can keep this up for much, much longer than you can stand me to."

"Bastard." Warrick shook his head, his shoulders tensed.

Swearing was good, for two fingers. Very good, and far too early, and Toreth wondered if Warrick was playing it up to get things over quickly. Half test and half punishment, Toreth slid the second finger out again. Warrick gave a protesting whimper and then, caught by surprise, hissed through his teeth as Toreth drove the remaining finger suddenly deeper.

"God,
please
. Fuck me."

Toreth laughed quietly and returned the second finger. "Not yet."

It was just like work. The first stage was easy. Getting someone to say 'I'll tell you what you want to know' was no different to reaching 'fuck me'. And then after that they would beg for it to stop, or to go on, and that wasn't so difficult to reach either. The real goal lay beyond that. He reached it when whoever he had in his hands knew that begging was hopeless and the only thing that mattered — the only thing that existed in their fucking
world
— was what he wanted. When they ceased to exist and their will was his, that was when he'd won. That was interrogation and that was the game.