Bahia
Jarius has already resumed his seat behind an expensively modest desk, backed by a vast expanse of smoky glass offering a panorama of the raddled neighborhood. Today his tailored, collarless suit is a fashionable burgundy so dark as to appear nearly crow-black. Jarius’s goatee, sideburns and quiff of thick hair are rusty roan streaked with grey. His complexion is swarthy and pocked with minute old acne scars. Teeth white as limestone in gums pink as grapefruit flesh stand forth when Jarius unleashes a smile on his secretary. His voice holds a rain-barrel resonance. Jarius’s eyes traverse Kerry’s whole form like inquisitive insect feelers before settling on her face—on her blemish?
“Ms. Hackett, you look particularly graceful today in that tasteful outfit.”
Kerry’s unmarked moiety of face colors a fraction of a step closer to matching the mottled portion. “It’s certainly nothing I haven’t worn before.”
“Well, today it’s a particularly effective business costume. You see, we have some unexpected visitors due here soon—several Senators on an inspection tour—and since you’ll be helping me conduct the tour, as well as accompanying us all to dinner tonight, your looks are vital. Not, of course, that you ever appear less than professional and demure.”
“Dinner? Tonight? But I had plans—”
Jarius negates her trivial plans with a negligent wave. “You’ll simply have to cancel them. I can’t be expected to manage these inquisitive federal boors all on my own. What if they ask me for statistics, costs, figures? Those are your metier, Ms. Hackett, part of your ultra-competent provenance.” Jarius smiles again. “Face it, Ms. Hackett, as my personal secretary, you’re indispensable to me.”
“I’ll have to call home.”
Jarius frowns, a balked demiurge. “If you don’t mind a slight personal inquisition, may I ask if you’re still sharing a residence with that fellow you brought to the Christmas party last month? A Mr. Santangelo, I believe his name was…”
“Yes, I am. Why do you ask?”
Jarius mimes a faint distaste. “Just that you and he seem so dissonant together. He’s rather—well, ragged and rough for a woman of your refinement.”
“Things have gone hard for him lately. Tango’s a good man.”
“’Tango.’ A rather childish nickname.”
Kerry remains silent. Jarius says, “Is he still suffering like so many other unfortunates from his, ah, affliction?”
“Yes.”
“And still taking his various medicines, those semipotent panaceas by which our rivals hold pitiful patients hostage? We wouldn’t want you to succumb to your boyfriend’s unrestrained bugs, should he desist from his protocol.”
“I make sure he takes everything he’s supposed to.”
“Those pills are rather expensive, aren’t they? Even with partial insurance coverage, they take a good chunk out of your pay, I estimate….”
“We get by.”
“Well, perhaps I might engineer a slight raise for you, Ms. Hackett, considering how you always devote one hundred and ten percent to Diaverde. You’re a fine employee. And I feel we understand each other magnificently well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jarius.”
Jarius checks his watch, emergent from beneath link-clasped cuff. “Well, the Senators will be here in slightly over an hour. I expect you’ll want to load your handy little pocket machine with all sorts of impressive data. Ms. Presser will alert us both when they arrive.”
Jarius spins his chair to gaze out the window, effectively dismissing Kerry.
Back at her desk, Kerry sits silently for a minute, hands folded in her lap, before she uses her Diaverde-issued cellphone to call home. Her machine, not Tango, answers, spiels, and beeps. “Hello, Tango, it’s me. Are you there? Pick up, please.” No human intervention forestalls the machine’s serene vacancy. She records a brief explanation for her unanticipated and unavoidable lateness home that night. She mates her PDA to her desk computer and uploads data on a range of current projects. By the time she finishes that chore and a few others, Oreesha is ushering in the Senators, and Jarius has emerged from his office. Hearty introductions all around, among the Diaverde people and the four Senators, three men and a woman. The latter share a generic bulkiness, due to lightweight yet effective armor hidden under their official grey legislative robes.
