Chapter 99 | Happy Dinner

Chapter 99: Chapter 99 | Happy Dinner

Carson Webb arrived at eight-thirty.

He knocked twice. Firm, not tentative. The knock of someone who had decided to come and was not second-guessing it at the door.

Kai opened it.

Carson Webb was thirty-two. B-rank hero, medium build, the particular kind of physical presence that came from ten years of dungeon clearances rather than ten years of training halls. Dark hair cut short. He had the careful eyes of someone who catalogued everything in a room before he said hello.

He looked at Kai.

"Kai Renmei," he said.

"Yes," Kai said.

"Carson Webb."

"I know," Kai said. "Come in."

---

Shira was at the window.

She turned when Carson came in and looked at him the way she looked at things she had been thinking about before they arrived.

Carson stopped in the center of the room.

He looked at her.

He did not say the wrong thing. He did not say anything for a moment. He just looked at her the way someone looks at a person they are glad to see alive.

"Shira Voss," he said.

"Carson," she said.

That was it. That was the whole reunion.

He sat down at the table when Kai gestured. He put his hands flat on the surface and looked around the apartment in the careful way.

"Nice unit," he said. "Corner?"

"Yes," Kai said.

"Medical district."

"Yes."

He nodded. He looked at the window. He looked at the second bedroom doorway. He looked at the kitchen.

He looked at the system notification brackets on Kai’s phone sitting face-down on the table and then looked away from it.

Kai moved the phone.

---

Mira came out at eight-forty.

She had the board and the RF-7 case and she stopped in the hallway when she saw Carson and looked at the wall near his shoulder.

Carson turned.

He looked at her.

Mira looked at the wall near his shoulder.

"Mira Elys," he said.

The board came up.

It said: You testified.

"Yes," Carson said.

In the record.

"Yes."

Publicly.

"The forty-one minute record needed to be in the public record," he said. "It was always in the official record. Someone needed to say it where people could hear it."

Mira held the board.

She looked at the wall near his shoulder.

She went to her chair.

Carson watched her move across the room and did not say anything about it and did not look anywhere he should not have looked.

Kai noted this.

---

Tea. Specialty rotation. Two blends.

Carson drank the tea and looked at the cup.

"This is not normal tea," he said.

"No," Kai said.

"What’s in it."

"Specialty blend," Kai said.

Carson looked at the cup.

"Right," he said.

He drank it.

He set it down.

He looked at Shira.

"The committee asked me to be the witness liaison," he said. "For the investigation. Not the criminal prosecution — Denko handles that. The hero authority committee looking at the registration side. The wrongful striking from the register."

"I know what a witness liaison does," Shira said.

"Yes," Carson said. "You would." He put his hands flat on the table again. "I’m not here about the liaison position. I can tell you about it but that’s not why I’m here."

Shira looked at him.

"Why are you here," she said.

He was quiet for a moment.

"Because when I gave the testimony," he said, "you were not in that room. Neither of you were. The committee heard about you. They heard the record. They heard the documentation." He looked at his hands. "But you weren’t there."

He looked at Shira.

"I wanted to see that you were here," he said. "I wanted to see that this was going somewhere real rather than just into an official record."

Shira looked at him.

"It’s going somewhere real," she said.

"Yes," he said. "I can see that."

He picked up his cup.

He drank.

Mira’s board appeared.

It said: Forty-one minutes.

Carson looked at the board.

"Yes," he said.

You remembered.

"I was there," he said. "Two years before the incident. Joint training exercise. You ran the full sequence at Vanguard, pressure test, forty-one minutes past the cutoff." He set his cup down. "Nobody else in the room said anything. I wrote it in my session notes."

Why didn’t you submit the notes sooner.

He was quiet.

"Because," he said, "I was told they were redundant. That the official assessment was the official assessment." He looked at the board. "It took me a year to understand that redundant was not the word they were using. After that I submitted them."

A year, the board said.

"Yes."

We were struck from the register eight months after the incident.

He looked at the board.

He looked at his hands.

"Yes," he said.

The table was quiet.

Shira said, to the window: "You submitted them."

"Yes," he said.

"That’s what matters," she said.

He looked at her.

She was looking at the window.

He looked at his cup.

---

At nine-thirty Carson stood up.

He shook Kai’s hand. He looked at Shira.

"If there is anything the witness liaison position can do," he said, "that Denko’s work isn’t already covering—"

"Denko covers everything," Shira said.

"Yes," Carson said. "He does." He put on his jacket. He looked at the doorway. He stopped. He looked back at Shira.

"Forty-one minutes is in the archive," he said. "The corrected archive. Your full name. Both names."

Shira looked at the window.

"I know," she said.

He nodded.

He looked at Mira.

Mira’s board appeared.

It said: The specialty rotation is good.

Carson looked at the board.

He looked at Kai.

"Yes," he said. "It is."

He went to the door.

He was almost through it when Mira’s board appeared one more time.

It said: Come on Tuesday.

He stopped.

He looked at the board.

"For what," he said.

We eat breakfast at seven, the board said. The specialty rotation is ready by six-forty-five.

He looked at the board.

He looked at Kai.

Kai looked at his tea.

He looked at Shira.

Shira was looking at the window.

He looked at the board.

"Tuesday," he said.

Yes, the board said. Then, after a pause: The form runs at five-fourteen. Don’t knock before six.

Carson looked at the board for a moment.

The corner of his mouth moved.

"I’ll be here at six-oh-one," he said.

He left.

---

Kai closed the door.

The apartment was quiet.

He turned.

Shira was still at the window.

Mira was looking at the board.

Then Mira’s board appeared.

It said: She was going to say don’t come.

Kai looked at her.

"I know," he said.

She didn’t.

"No," he said.

Good.

She lowered the board.

She ate the rest of her specialty rotation.

Shira was quiet at the window for a while.

Then: "He remembered the session notes."

"Yes," Kai said.

"He wrote them down," she said. "Two years before. While it was happening. He knew what forty-one minutes meant while everyone else was looking the other way."

She looked at the window.

"People like that are rare," she said.

"Yes," Kai said.

She looked at the window.

"Tuesday," she said.

"Yes," Kai said.

She ate.

---

That afternoon Kai was at the table when his phone lit up.

A news notification.

He looked at it.

Then he looked at the hallway.

He stood up.

He went to Mira’s door.

Three knocks.

She opened it.

He held his phone out to her.

She read it.

Her eyes went still.

She read it again.

She held the board.

Joel Marsh.

"Yes," Kai said.

The notification was from the hero authority bulletin. Four lines. His name in the official record. His Gift assessment credited to the expedition documentation. His recorded request for Mira specifically cited as evidence of pre-expedition knowledge of the node.

They named him, the board said.

"Yes," Kai said.

She held the board.

She lowered it.

She looked at the phone.

She looked at the doorframe.

"Can I have that," she said.

Out loud. Three words. Clear.

Kai looked at her.

He handed her the phone.

She took it.

She closed the door.

He stood in the hallway.

He stood there for a minute.

He went back to the table.

---

At four Mira’s door opened.

She came out with his phone and set it on the table.

She sat.

She had the board.

She wrote slowly.

She held it toward the second bedroom door, which was open, which meant Shira could see it from where she was running the form.

The form stopped.

Shira appeared in the doorway.

She looked at the board.

It said: They put his name in the record.

"I saw," Shira said. She was breathing from the form. She looked at the board. "Both bulletin sites picked it up. His name, the request, the frequency match."

Mira held the board.

She lowered it.

She picked up the marker.

She wrote one more thing and held it up toward the window. Not toward Shira. Not toward Kai.

Just toward the window and the afternoon light.

It said: He already knew.

She held it there for a moment.

She lowered it.

She face-down the board on the table.

She ate her afternoon tea.

Kai drank his.

Shira went back to the form.

---

At six Kai was making the dinner rotation when Mira appeared in the kitchen doorway.

She was looking at the wall near his shoulder.

He kept making the rotation.

She stood there.

He waited.

"Kai," she said.

He turned.

She was looking at the wall near his shoulder.

Not the board. Just her voice. Clear and deliberate, the way she had said play it in front of Dana Marsh and the way she had said can I have that at her door.

He looked at her.

She was looking at the wall near his shoulder.

"The dinner rotation," she said. "The second blend." She paused. "You’re steeping it too long."

He looked at the second blend.

She was right.

He adjusted it.

She went back to her room.

He stood at the counter.

He stood there for a moment.

Then he went back to the rotation.