“I know that.” And he did know it. Intellectually, at least. He knew he was all self-centered and arrogant here, but he couldn’t help thinking sometimes . . . well, ever since that first day he met Heather, really, that a great many things—perhaps a disproportionate number of things—tended to become about him. Maybe he was a bit paranoid.
“Blackburn has never even brought you up to me,” she assured him. “Except once when we were joking about writing table etiquette subroutines, and of course, you came up. Oh, and when I told him a trainee had gotten banned from all the companies and he said, ‘Let me guess. Tom Raines.’ That was it.”
Tom tossed in a last chess piece with a sigh, and changed the subject. “So, think Yuri’s murdered Vik yet?”
She smiled wickedly. “No, I think he’s making him suffer.”
And then the door to the plebe common room slid open. Tom’s gaze jolted up. It was Heather Akron.
This was trouble. He’d given Wyatt away over the thought interface and Heather had threatened her.
Heather’s smile grew voracious like a hungry predator’s at the sight of Wyatt. “Enslow!” she exclaimed, voice dripping with sweet poison. “How great to find you in here. I really want to talk with you.”
Wyatt threw an uncertain glance toward the door to Alexander Division, where Yuri and Vik had gone. Heather slinked across the room to loom right in front of Wyatt. Her eyes raked her up and down, and she said, “I hear you’ve been spreading some nasty slander about me.”
Tom kicked the chess box under the table and reared to his feet. “Heather, hold off. That stuff I was thinking—”
“This isn’t your business right now, Tom,” Heather told him, never taking her sharp gaze from Wyatt’s. “Wyatt and I are chatting.”
Wyatt raised her chin a bit. “No, I didn’t do that.”
Heather cocked her head, propping her hands on her hips. “What’s that? Are you saying you didn’t spread slander about me?”
Louder, Wyatt said, “No. I didn’t. After all, slander’s not true.”
Heather drew a step closer to her. Seeing two girls in a passion of anger, ready to tangle, made Tom strangely exultant and filled him with excited anticipation, but he knew he had to step in. He shoved an arm in front of both of them.
“Hey, cut this out, both of you—”
“This isn’t about you, Tom!” Wyatt snapped this time.
“Yes, mind your own business,” Heather hissed.
Intimidated, Tom backed off.
Heather’s amber eyes were glittering. “I’ve never really liked you, Enslow, but I haven’t had a problem with you. No reason to make your life miserable . . . until now. I really don’t appreciate being stabbed in the back, so I’m not going to do that to you.”
“Why am I the lone exception?” Wyatt said blandly.
“I’m here to warn you that you made the wrong enemy. You’re on my radar now, Enslow, and whatever you might think, I have a lot of influence in CamCo, more every single day. I can make sure you never become a Combatant. Not only that, but I will make your life seriously suck around here.”
Wyatt’s face had gone very blank, her gaze stony. “Glad we had this talk,” Heather said, and whirled around, dark hair swishing as she pranced back toward the elevator.
Tom needed to fix this. He started after Heather, not sure what he’d say but hopeful he could come up with something.
Wyatt caught his arm before he reached Heather. “Where are you going?”
“I’ll talk to her for you.”
“Why?”
“She’s threatening you, I’ll threaten her. Somehow.” Tom shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”
“No,” Wyatt said, irritated. “I want to threaten my own enemies.”
Tom looked her over and detected the same resolve in her face he’d only seen a few times—but he’d learned to fear it. “Okay. But threaten fast, she’s gonna be out of here, soon.”
Wyatt turned to her forearm keyboard, quickly typing something in, launching a program. The elevator door slid open, but Heather jerked to a halt before she stepped through. For a moment, she stood there in the doorway, her back rigid, then she whirled around and blazed back over to them.
“What did you do?” she demanded, getting back in Wyatt’s face.
“Oops,” Wyatt said, glancing at her keyboard. “Was that your firewall I knocked down? I think it was.”
Heather gaped at her. It took her a moment to recover and shoot back, “No need to worry, I have a secondary firewall I can put in its place.”
She jabbed at her forearm keyboard. Then, as Heather restored her firewall, a tiny smile crossed Wyatt’s lips, and her fingers danced over her forearm keyboard again—and executed another program.
“Hey!” Heather cried, her palm flying up to her head, as though to shield her processor with her hand.
“Whoops, did something disable your secondary firewall, too?” Wyatt said innocently. “I don’t know how that keeps happening.” She pressed a finger to her lips like she had to think about it a moment. “Oh, wait, I do. It’s me. I’m doing it.”
Heather opened and closed her mouth, then sputtered, “Is there some convoluted little point you’re trying to make?”
Wyatt shrugged. “Just that I can’t help noticing I can disable most any defense you erect around your processor, and it’s incredibly easy for me. I mean, that took me mere seconds, both times, and you probably worked on those firewalls for months. Now that I think about it, if you don’t have a firewall protecting your neural processor, I could probably do anything to you. With that consideration in mind, you’d be wise to write a stronger program to defend yourself before trying to ‘make my life seriously suck.’ At least, if you’re still stupid enough to try it.”
“Are you threatening me?” Heather whispered.
“No,” Wyatt said flatly. “I’m stating the obvious.”
Heather hovered there, fists clenched, frustration on her face. Then she seemed to make a decision. She batted at Wyatt’s shoulder playfully. “Oh, come on, Enslow, you’re taking this way too seriously.”
It was Wyatt’s turn to stare.
“You know I was teasing you. It’s what CamCos do to Middles. Some friendly hazing. I know you were doing your job reporting me, and honestly, it was very dumb of me to get tricked by those reporters into running my mouth about the other CamCos in the first place. I still feel so foolish over it. Good for you, for catching it!”
Wyatt opened and closed her mouth, utterly perplexed.
“I have to go. You’re a rock star, girl!” Heather winked at her, then headed across the room and disappeared into the elevator.
Wyatt burst out, “What happened? I don’t understand! We were having a standoff, then she acted like I was the one who started threatening stuff, like I was the one overreacting.” She turned to Tom urgently, her brows furrowed. “I wasn’t making a big deal out of nothing, was I?”
“That was Heather saving face,” Tom explained. “You won, she lost, and she couldn’t admit it.”