“I don’t know what you mean,” Justine said flatly.
Ariane raised her eyebrows. “No? I think you do. My heritage might mean I could have some connection to the technology, but that’s assuming whatever you’ve managed to save isn’t broken beyond repair. I might not be completely human, but that doesn’t mean I was born with an advanced degree in alien engineering.” She turned to me. “And as for any documents they might have found, I don’t speak the language. I was born here, remember? And that’s if they even have a written language. Why would an advanced society rely on such rudimentary methods?”
“You don’t know that,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. I needed her to see that while it might not be a perfect choice, it was, in fact, a choice.
“There’s more to it,” Ariane said with complete confidence and more than a hint of fire in her tone. “They’re offering too much for too little gain.” She turned her attention back to Justine. “And what about Ford and Carter? What about the trials?”
Justine’s mouth tightened into an unhappy line. “They will continue as they are now. So will the trials.”
“You’re not going to do anything to stop what Laughlin and Jacobs have been doing,” Ariane said, folding her arms across her chest.
“That is not our primary concern,” Justine acknowledged, after a pause.
Disgust twisted Ariane’s expression. “I bet.”
Frustration flashed across Justine’s face, and she looked to me with a raised eyebrow, as if to say, “What are you waiting for?”
I stood quickly, my chair shrieking across the tile floor. “Can we have a minute?” I asked Justine, but I was already moving away before she nodded.
Ariane followed me without protest to the edge of the seating area, near where the line of waiting customers coiled.
“What are you doing?” I asked, as soon as we were far away enough to be out of Justine’s earshot.
She regarded me solemnly, her expression giving me nothing. “She’s offering too much for—”
“For too little, yeah, I know.” I waved the words away impatiently. “So what? I doubt they’re going to pit you against another alien/human hybrid and recommend killing off the competition.” Okay, mainly because there weren’t any other alien/human hybrids, as far as we know, but the point still held. And there was always the frying pan into the fire concern, but at a certain level of heat, it didn’t really matter, did it? Taking the chance was better.
Ariane avoided my gaze. “Maybe, maybe not.”
“Are you serious?” I raked my hands through my hair. “Look, I know this isn’t easy for you, that maybe you feel like you don’t deserve something more than whatever half-life you’ve been able to cobble together, but you do. You deserve this.”
That seemed to light a fire in her. She stiffened. “Do you think I don’t want to say yes? Do you think I’m eager to turn her down?” Her eyes were bright with anger and unshed tears.
“I don’t know, maybe!” I said, frustrated and working hard not to shout. I could feel the attention of the crowd a few feet behind us. Even if it’s conducted in whispers, a fight is a fight, and everyone recognizes the universal body language.
Ariane’s expression softened, and something in her seemed to shift from questioning to acceptance. “We can argue about what I deserve or don’t deserve endlessly. You don’t know everything that I’ve done, Zane.” She dropped her gaze to the floor.
“If this is about the entry qualification for the trials,” I said in a quieter voice, “you know that doesn’t count. Just because Jacobs forced you to—”
She looked up sharply. “He didn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I…needed to be here to end this, so I did what I had to do to get in.” Shame and regret colored her features, but she met my eyes, daring me to argue.
I eyed her skeptically. “You killed someone. Just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “Dead. Permanently.” It wasn’t that I doubted her ability to do exactly that—she could, easily—but I knew her.
She hesitated. “He…is alive now,” she allowed, her jaw tight. “But that might not have been the case if my attempts at CPR had failed or—”
“That’s what I thought,” I said with no small amount of satisfaction. “You would never—”