Dark Oracle by Alayna Williams Read Free Book Online

yourself by how fast you can run, trying to keep up.” Tara noted her unconscious use of the present tense. DiRosa didn’t believe Magnusson was gone. It was too early to tell if it was denial.
    “Had Magnusson changed his behavior lately? Any changes in his hours or habits?”
    “He’d seemed preoccupied. I thought. . . I thought maybe he’d finally climbed out of his shell and found himself another. . .” She stopped herself, corrected. “A girlfriend. Or discovered the internet.”
    “How long has he been out here?”
    “Six months.”
    “Any friends or associates you know of?”
    “He kept his personal life separate from work.”
    “Introverted?”
    “You could say that. The word I would use is intense. ”
    “ Intense . . . Did he make any enemies?”
    DiRosa paused. “Magnusson had some issues with working within the chain of command. He was more. . . accustomed to working as he had in academia, without such close supervision.”
    “He didn’t play well with others?”
    “Not really. He could be pretty damn abrasive. He could be. . . impatient with people who couldn’t keep up and see his vision. I think. . . I think he wanted more freedom in his work, and I would have been surprised to see him stay much longer.”
    “Why did he come, then? I can’t see an academic playing nicely with guys like Gabriel.”
    “The government has the deepest pockets for the best toys. Ours are shinier, faster, and more expensive than the ones even Cornell can buy. He wanted to get his hands on them, pursue some of his own interests.”
    “I can’t imagine you’re too amenable to that, here.”
    “We’re not.” DiRosa’s voice tightened.
    Tara listened to Li work on DiRosa while she rummaged through the desk drawers. She hoped the activity masked her shivering; the sweat had begun to dry, and she could hear her suit rattle if she held still. Her fingers riffled through blank notepads, unused pens, sets of screwdrivers still in their blister packaging. If not for the destroyed computer, the scene looked like an advertisement for an office supply store. None of the lead in the pencils had been worn down to an angle. All the erasers were perfect. She thumbed through a yellow legal pad, one after another. All the perforations were still intact.
    She ran her fingers over the keyboard. There were no crumbs, no worn letters on the keys, no residue of spilled coffee. It looked new.
    Whatever Magnusson wanted others to think, he did no work in this office. . . if it was truly his, and not a set piece provided for their benefit.
    She knelt down in the debris of the computer, felt the USB ports. They were loose with wear. Bringing them out from under the desk, even in the weak lighting she could see scratches on the terminals.
    She smiled. Magnusson had worked here. He’d just taken his work home with him, probably on a portable drive. He wanted no traces of himself, or his work, to linger here. No photographs, no decorated coffee mugs. No substantial part of himself.
    She and Magnusson had something in common. Magnusson didn’t want to be here. The realization of it suddenly lit her brain like a struck match. It meant he’d hidden his knowledge someplace else.
    I T WAS DUSK BY THE TIME THE ALIEN JELLYFISH SPAT T ARA and Li out of its plastic gullet. Late-winter sun shone coldly over the brittle grasses as they trudged across the caldera to the access road and the distant line forming at the decontamination center. The low gray clouds had reeled back, spitting a few flakes that drifted through the field. Dust and ash motes glistened in orange light, suspended in the air like dandelion fluff. Tara wished she could feel the saffron sun on her face directly. The plastic visor seemed to warp everything she saw in a circular pattern of fine, rainbow scratches.
    Once they were out of earshot of the jellyfish, Li grabbed Tara’s arm, turning her to face him. “Let’s clarify a few things.” Through the glare of his mask,