Berenson pointed at him like he'd won some secret prize. "An excellent question. One option implies negligence, the other arrogance. Whichever caused the disaster would carry implications towards the mental state of the men responsible, as well as define the risks of those now tampering with the Plymouth. Alas, the Hodges Report could not conclude between those options. Four years of investigation and thousands of interviews could not resolve the question, nor what the Path had hoped to achieve."
Clausen interrupted, "It doesn't matter. It ended the war, we survived, and now we know the risks."
"How very pragmatic." Berenson deadpanned. "But you are correct. In some ways, it may have been a merciful ending to a war. How many end without the customary rape and pillage? For all its body-count, in time, we may discover that the cascade was the cleanest end we could have hoped for. After all, it did give us the Authority we all know and love." He gave a slight bow and flourish, then stepped for the door. At the threshold, he paused and offered, "Enjoy your training. Learn well from Mister Firenze. There may come a time that all the world will once again hinge on the whispers of Bergman's nightmare."
Clausen stepped after him and demanded, "And where are you going?"
"Out to visit the city." Berenson replied, "I heard it is lovely this time of year."
"And what do you think you're going to do out there?" Lieutenant Poole asked. The lieutenant stood framed in the doorway, at the head of six armed guards. Firenze understood right then why Clausen had been stalling. Poole stepped up beside his sergeant, face stone and unreadable.
Berenson betrayed neither fear nor anger, just another flash of his half-amused-half-impressed grin. He quipped, "I plan to kidnap some media executives, lieutenant. I want to see myself on the evening news." He paused, his voice lost all humor, and he explained, "What do you think I am doing? I plan on getting a pizza. I heard there were some wonderful local shops." He glanced, irritated, towards the Agency cadre behind the officer, and added, "You need not have bothered, but I thank you for fetching my handlers. I was going to bring them in case I needed some luggage carried." Berenson offered one last mocking bow.
He vanished under escort, and the room finally breathed. By the looks on people's faces, Firenze wasn't the only one who felt the pressure release. Like an exam hall after the provost fled, the first conversations came as whispers, then laughs.
Firenze demanded, "Who the hell is he?"
"Bad news." Clausen said. "You did good."
"You could have told me we were stalling."
Poole took the answer, "Not in any way that wouldn't have alerted our guest."
"Why is he even here?!" Firenze demanded. A moment later, he remembered the requisite, "Sir."
Poole pursed his lips so tightly they tinged white and gave the slightest hint of a head-shake. Once he'd swallowed down some unspoken comment, he replied only, "Sorry, but I can't tell you."
Something about the way he said that gave Firenze the chills, which only grew worse when he looked to Clausen. The unflappable sergeant didn't appear worried. No, that would have been an alien expression for such a rock-hewn face. Instead, Clausen's jaw was set, his brow furrowed, and his eyes locked on the middle distance. Firenze knew that look. He'd seen it in dronetown when the veteran pipe-climbers heard the rumble below. That look was grim resignation - an acknowledgment of exactly what was coming and how unlikely it was to end well.
At that moment, Firenze came to a horrid realization: he'd believed a lie. The hardest day was yet to come and would be on a scale, unimagined.
Paths Not Taken
The clock on the wall of the Halstead's office far outdated even the rusted gears of Kessinwey. White enameled hands wound over stained wood, clicking to a rhythm born from the stacked gears within. A mechanical clock like this was a curiosity from a dead world, a once-beautiful talking-piece made for the departed governor-executive. Now it hung in memorial, ticking away without regard to time. Firenze found himself peeking through the open door at that clock. If he was kept waiting much longer, he might have burst into the office, ripped it from the wall, and opened up its gears to see how it ran.
Finally, the adjutant spoke. "He'll see you now."
Firenze didn't need to be told twice, and nearly sprinted from his waiting-room chair. He crossed the frame at a skip and almost crashed into the desk. The office had looked larger from outside, but Firenze shouldn't have been surprised. Halstead had taken over the fab-plant supervisor's office, not the executive tower, so this room was as drab and grease-stained as the rest, from its yellowed plant-floor windows to its cracked faux-wood panels. Books and binders filled every corner, commanded the desk in heaping piles, a barely constrained organized chaos that hinted at a system Firenze couldn't quite discern.
Behind the binder-stack, Halstead's bushy gray eyebrows rose. With an ease only gained through decades of practice, the colonel greeted, "Good afternoon, Mister Firenze." He closed his current binder, and his mustache twitched as he skimmed the last line. He scanned the young man up and down, then asked, "What can I do for you?"
"I had questions, sir." Firenze said. He had to work not to trip on his words. The colonel's time was valuable, and it had taken all his nerve to request this visit. Even in a building with an 'open-door' policy, some thresholds were best not crossed through without cause, and he suspected this was one.
Halstead harumphed, but his expression warmed, and he threw his binder back onto the stack. "Can't be much worse than what I was reading. Sure, I have time for some questions."
"Thank you, sir."
Halstead nodded. "You've come a long way since you got
