Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1) (15 page)

“
Well,” Gal said, lifting her chin and gave Liza a stern look,
fighting to hold down a smile. “There is really only one thing I
could accept as an apology for something like that.”

“
Oh anything!” Liza said, looking desperately down at the
smaller woman.

The smile slowly won out over Gal's face.
“You shall just have to come along with us. In fact, I insist upon
training you myself.”

Liza's eyes flared with excitement. “Oh, you
would really... um, I mean...” She composed herself, but couldn't
keep from smiling, “I suppose that if there is no other way...”

“
And there isn't!” Gal interjected.

“
Then I have no choice but to put the honor of my family first
and accept.”

“
Good. It will be nice to spend time with someone else who has
a little class, for a change.” The two women started off walking
arm in arm, Gal's tiny physique almost comical next to Liza's
towering frame. Gal flung a hand in the air and made a curt,
beckoning gesture. “Come along boys,” she called back to Mat and
Ezra, then leaned over toward Liza and, in a stage whisper,
commented, “You really have to keep them focused, you know. They
have such short attention spans.”

Glancing over her shoulder with a small
smile, Liza whispered back, “I believe they may have heard
that.”

Gal sniffed. “And one can only hope they
will learn, dear, despite themselves.”

Mat snorted and nudged Ezra forward, Gal
keeping up a constant commentary on the many dreadful shortcomings
of men all the way to the gym.

Nearly three hours later,
Ezra collapsed to the floor in exhaustion.
Technically
, he thought to
himself,
you were exhausted quite a while
ago, and just haven't had time to think about it until
now
.

Mat had worked him hard to learn the basic
forms, drilled him in swinging the weighted practice sword over and
over until his arms felt like lead. “Got to teach your muscles how
to move,” Mat said with a laugh, nudging Ezra with a foot. “So they
can move even when you don't think!”

“
Which has never been a problem for Mat.” Gal and Liza joined
them, having just showered off after an extensive lesson on
learning to throw a person and be thrown.

“
Oh, that was fun.” Liza beamed at them all. “We simply must do
this again. Perhaps tomorrow! And then we can all have a nice
dinner afterward! We can arrange to meet at...” She glanced at the
time and gasped. “Oh my! I've been gone a terribly long time; you
really must excuse me, it was a pleasure seeing you both again, Mr.
Hawkins, Miss Doe, and it really was just so nice to meet you Mr.
Matanane, but I am afraid I must take my leave.” Curtsying, she
backed her way to the door, tripping over or running into several
amused people, all of whom she apologized to profusely.

“
That's an odd one.” Mat scratched his chin as he watched her
progress.

“
Arg, dinner. I forgot,” Ezra groaned from the floor, “Gal, I'm
supposed to invite you to dinner tonight, but it's a trap. Kirsten
is going to grill you alive and serve me as dessert, with a side
dish of unimaginable agony.”

“
Is she now?” Gal's eyes sparkled with defiance.

“
Kirsten? Is that your secretary?” Mat leaned over, looking
interested. “She say anything about me?”

Ezra spread a hand over his eyes, rubbing at
his temples. “She didn't know you existed yet, Mat.”

“
Well
now, that explains why I wasn't invited,” Mat said, sounding
reasonable. “So!” He clapped his hands and rubbed them together.
“What are we having?”

The dinner was... probably not what Kirsten
had planned. Mat spent the whole night leering at her, exclaiming
loudly about how good everything was and “Oh, Kirstin, you should
try a bite of this! Say ahhh...” Kirsten looked mortified. Gal
grumbled about being upstaged.

Ezra fought not to laugh as
he bid his friends a good night, Mat calling over his shoulder that
he'd be back tomorrow for another round at the gym and, if anyone
else wanted to go, he could bring along an extra set of workout
equipment. Kirsten's voice cracked as she yelled “Good
night
, Mister Matanane!”
from the top of the stairs. Mat shrugged as he turned away from the
door, and Gal gave Ezra a thorough kiss goodnight, whispering in
his ear, “I was looking forward to having you for dessert tonight.
Maybe next time.” Her smile promised things that made Ezra flush
from head to toe.

Ezra wandered back to his
room in a happy daze, ready to sleep like the dead, when he noticed
a letter and a small, flat package sitting neatly in the center of
his bed. Curious, he picked it up and saw the words
Ezra – For a Job Well Done
scrawled on the front, signed with the letter
B.
Hands trembling, he
opened it and found a single translucent, flexible sheet inside. A
data sheet, a sort of lightweight, read-only file storage device,
usually encrypted for a specific person with a thumb-print. He
pressed his thumb to the access circle in the lower right-hand
corner and a list sprung to life on the screen. Looking closely,
Ezra saw that each entry was nothing but a date and time. He
accessed the first entry, dated nearly five hundred years ago, and
the screen flashed briefly.
Ah, a retinal
scan for each entry,
Ezra thought
wryly.
Someone does not want this
information leaking out
.

A brief description of a
Guild team's mission followed. A few seconds later, the screen
flashed lightly again.
Some kind of
refresh issue?
Ezra wondered, lifting and
turning the sheet to look at the other side. Another light flash,
and the sheet turned off.
Oh, periodic
retinal scans
.
Someone really does not want this information leaking
out
. Ezra re-accessed the document and
poured over its contents; a concise summary of a mission to some
large burned out area, some fact-finding from the local people...
Ezra's eyebrows lifted. This was the first mission, when the
fire-kissed had burned out nearly a quarter of a continent in a
war. There were pictures of endless, flat stretches of blackened
earth. Ezra shuddered as he read the captions associated with each.
Caracas. Mexico City. New Houston. Everything had been burned to
ash. Ezra left the chilling mission report and scrolled to the end
of list, to an entry dated just the day before. He smiled as he
read it. Sarah really had made him out to be a hero. He glanced
around and frowned; no secure hiding places available to him just
yet.
Under the pillow for tonight,
he thought,
down to the
lab in the morning
. Satisfied with his
decision and exhausted from a long, full day, Ezra fell into a
deep, dreamless sleep.

==

Ezra woke up a few minutes
before his alarm the next morning and groaned as various parts of
his body competed for the honor of having the very best and most
painful cramp. He stretched, accidentally nudging the data sheet
out from its hiding place.
That's
right!
he thought excitedly. Grabbing the
sheet, he devoured the next mission: something about a wind-scarred
looting near the devastation of the fire-kissed war. Arms, legs,
and back still hideously sore from his training the day before, he
smuggled the mission reports down to his lab and locked them away
with his other research material.
Real
work during the day
, he thought while
trying to stretch his shoulders,
mission
research at night.

Nodding to himself, Ezra sat down at his
console and stared blankly at the two theorems he had been bashing
his head against. He sighed and got back to work.

Sometime around noon, Ezra decided to embark
on a kitchen raid. Leftovers from the night before served as a
hearty meal, and he was just about to head back to the lab without
anyone the wiser when he heard the house politely announce someone
at the front door. Ezra looked around, shrugged, and headed for the
door to see who it was. He came out of the kitchen in time to see
Kirsten walking briskly to answer, muttering to herself, “Probably
that insufferable man again... but this time I'll tell him off,
just wait and see.”

Ezra raced forward, hoping to spare his
friend whatever tongue lashing Kirsten had in mind, and was
surprised to hear not Mat at the door, but Gal's teammate,
Sebastian. “Good afternoon, Miss O'Donnell. My name is Sebastian
Walker with the Jadson and Monroe Products company and this is Miss
Sarah Hughes. If we could just have a moment of your time, we've
come to finalize the contracts that we drew up with Mr. Hawkins two
nights ago.”

“
The Hughes family is very much looking forward to working with
Mr. Hawkins and putting a rest to the rumors about our families'
supposed rivalry.” Ezra peeked over Kirsten's shoulder and saw
Sarah, wearing a business suit, beaming at the woman in front of
her. Sebastian had concealed the tattoo on his face, donned a
fashionable set of spectacles, and was offering Kirsten what looked
like a small card.

“
JaM Products? I don't believe I've heard of you,” Kirsten said
skeptically, reading the card.

Sebastian was smooth with his reply. “We're
a high end subcontractor for the Department of Ordinances and
Lawful Temerity, focusing on third party technology to meet
transportation needs.”

“
Ah, I see, and how is it that you know Mr. Hawkins?” Ezra
tried to signal to them from behind Kirsten, waving his hand
frantically and hoping to get some idea of what was going on. They
both ignored him.

“
We had the pleasure of making Mr. Hawkins' acquaintance by way
of a mutual friend, a Miss Galois Doe, over dinner the night before
last. Our organization was very impressed with the technology that
Mr. Hawkins demonstrated on Founder's Day and had been
brainstorming some practical applications of his work for the good
of society, the Department specifically.”

“
Of Ezra's work.” Miss O'Donnell stated flatly. “On Founder's
Day.”

Ezra stopped jumping up and down and
bristled slightly. So he had gotten in a little trouble, but was it
really that surprising that someone would be impressed with his
remote wormhole generator? It was, in his unbiased opinion, pretty
much the future of all wormhole travel, possibly all travel,
period.

“
Of course!” chimed in Sarah. “He did things with wormholes
that we thought were decades away!”

“
Excuse me, Miss Hughes.” Kirsten managed to speak down to the
taller woman, somehow maintaining the necessary amount of civility
while simultaneously making it clear that she would gladly throw
her off a building. “You are, if I recall, a non-inheriting older
sibling in your family That being the case, I just can't seem to
place why you're here.”

Ezra saw Sarah swallow down a flash of
anger, then smile sweetly. “I serve as my family's liaison in many
legal matters, such as prospective contracts. The Hughes family has
volunteered to work with Mr. Hawkins, providing all of the
necessary raw materials for his project as a show of support. We
can't let things like family history get in the way progress, after
all.”

“
Ah, yes, I see,” Kirsten looked down to check her data
display. “I'm afraid that Mr. Hawkins is booked for the rest of the
week. I can see about arranging to squeeze you in with the family's
legal consultants some time after...”

Sarah glanced over Kirsten's shoulder, then
waved to Ezra. “Ezra! Remember me? Sarah, from the club the other
night with Gal?”

Kirsten slowly turned and fixed her emerald
eyes on Ezra. He stood there, too shocked to think, half-eaten
plate of food still in his hands.

“
Ah, Mr. Hawkins, good. If I could just have you sign this
document here...” Sebastian began to push past Kirsten.

“
Don't sign anything, Ezra!” Kirsten snarled whipping her head
around moving to physically block Sebastian.

“
But,” Sebastian put on a confused tone, “we're already just
about set to move into production on our new facility. There's a
sizable amount of money in it for the Hawkins estate, not to
mention the good publicity of helping with a Department of
Ordinances contract, of course...”

Kirsten glanced down at the contract that
Sebastian had pulled up, then did a double take and quickly began
scanning the rest of the document. Sebastian smiled wryly. “Mr.
Hawkins drove a hard bargain, said that we would need to cover the
damages that the Conservatorium suffered during testing, as well as
any costs accrued by various port stations around the city that had
may have malfunctioned due to some unforeseen side effects, in
addition to a hefty fee for the use of his new tech. It took some
doing to get a blanket pardon statement from the Chancellor as
well, but we just had to have it. We even toasted it
afterward.”

“
Ezra,” Kirsten said in a quiet voice, looking up slowly,
cautiously from the document. “Is this what you were doing two
nights ago?”