Rogue(61)

So he was probably behind the curve on that.

I turned off the lamp, shifted a bit to get a better view angle of the screen, and went through it again, this time looking for cues on the witnesses or observers. He or a shill or a camera might have been there to confirm.

We found some possible but nothing concrete. I did grab some faces and compare on my database of known scumbags. None were definite matches, and the only possibles were local. Of course, I hadn’t updated since I left Grainne, and any data on an unregarded dump such as this were bound to be thin and out of date.

I sighed and zoned, running the feeds over and just letting it permeate. Something might jump out at me. Nothing did, and I stared at nothing.

I snapped back to alert when Silver said, “Dan.” I didn’t hear any tone of alarm in her voice. I dropped to normal level and replied.

“Yes?”

“Does my presence disturb you?”

“Are you asking in what way it disturbs me?”

“Yes.”

I sighed.

“It’s easier to list how you don’t.”

I clicked the lamp on and sat up.

She said, “We should have had this discussion already. I was waiting for you to bring it up.”

“Yeah, I don’t do well with people, and I don’t discuss myself well. Partly me. Partly being alone so long. Partly the time I spent on Earth. Feelings aren’t something you discuss there. And of course, we were in complete ID cover.”

“If I’m stressing you, we need to resolve it.”

“Okay. You’re about the same age Deni was when I was on Earth.”

“Deni?”

“Senior Sergeant Denise Harlett was a friend, the only real lover I had on and off for a decade, a fine sniper and tech specialist. I chose her for my cell because she was very good, and I knew how she worked. I wanted my deputy to be familiar.”

I sighed, closed my eyes, and said it.

“We screwed up; she got pregnant. That’s where Chelsea comes into this. Deni hid her in the building when they got hit by UN troops. I was out at the time, officially gathering social intel. Actually, I was going irrational from realizing I’d just killed three million people in a morning’s work. So I left her, and Kimbo, and Tyler Jones to die. I feel pretty fucking shitty about that even now, and will forever.”

“You had to save your daughter,” she said.

“Yeah, and that didn’t help with the guilt. I should have gotten the two of them out and made the fuckers pay. You might pick up that I’m not very happy with life.”

“So me being a seventeen-year-old female is the problem?”

“One of the problems, yes. And dammit, I’ve had no romantic partner since then, because I was in hiding, and self-loathing, and don’t have a personality most people can handle when I’m not pissed off, which is constantly. So now I’m next to an attractive woman, stuck to me like a hullsucker, no offense, for the duration. I can’t nail you, I can’t get away to nail anyone else, I want . . . dammit.”

She sat quietly and gave me time to compose myself.

“There was a slaughter on Mtali, too. Partly my idea, partly Naumann’s, but I think he manipulated me into it. Still, it’s my fault. We went around terrifying villages into compliance. I screwed up and let one get the upper hand. The only response possible was to exterminate them . . . all of them . . . dammit.”

I felt nauseated all over again. It had been a total fucking waste, brutal murder, and it had accomplished nothing. I didn’t want to think about it. We’d made sure to destroy all the evidence we found, and now everyone involved was dead, save me and Naumann. I sank my nails into the quilt and twisted.

“So I came back . . . and I was overloaded with stress. I went to the rec center, and I couldn’t . . . I needed release, and I couldn’t, because I needed a human being, and I needed it to be someone compassionate, so I could use them as a tool.

“At that point I found I couldn’t.

“I am an insane sociopath. I see everyone as us or them, and I can do whatever is called for to them—complete suppression of emotion. I can’t do it to my friends. If I were a true sociopath, I wouldn’t care at all. That I care means . . . I don’t know what it means. It means I hate myself for what I do. I’m broken.”

I sat, hoping she’d ask and hoping she wouldn’t. She deserved to know, but nothing would fix it.

“Go on,” she said. Her body language tightened up as she sat back. Dammit, that was bad for our cover.

“Yeah, I’m sexually stressed, among other emotional overloads. It would be unprofessional to grudge fuck you. It would be unfair. It wouldn’t make things better, and I can’t do it. Part of me is overcome with lust, part is fighting it down, and all of me is hating me, and I want the entire universe to die, except I’m the one who should. And it’s possible I’ll need to do something that gets you killed to accomplish this, and it’s between me and Randall and Naumann, and even if you volunteered, you deserve better than to be in this cesspool.”