Handling him? What was he, an unexploded bomb? She’d had quite enough of pupils in the last few weeks.
It’s quite a short assignment, and shouldn’t take you more than a few days, maybe a week. You should be operating near a fixed exit point into the nominated world, so if there are any problems or delays you can send me a report.
It sounded, Irene reflected, as if Coppelia really wanted to cover her own back on this one.
My dear Irene, I have the utmost confidence in you. I know that I can rely on you to live up to the Library’s traditions and expectations, while providing a valuable example to this new recruit.
It also sounded as if Coppelia had been reading too many bad recruitment brochures and codes of practice.
I’ve authorized Kai (that’s his name) to take one of the rapid shifts to where you are, so you can expect him any moment.
Irene paused to listen nervously. If that was true, then Kai had been allowed to use one of the most closely restricted methods of transport in the entire Library. This either meant that Coppelia didn’t want any argument and just wanted her out of the way and on the job, or that the mission was very urgent, or that there was something about Kai so dubious that he shouldn’t be seen in public. Perhaps Kai simply couldn’t handle normal Library navigation, which was bad news in itself . . . and that was multiple clauses based on an either/or, which was bad grammar. She hated bad grammar.
He’s got all the details on the mission.
Now that was really bad. That could mean that Coppelia wasn’t prepared to put it in an email. Irene could smell politics, and she didn’t want to get involved with that at all. She’d always thought that Coppelia was a more reasonable, research-oriented, only-Machiavellian-once-in-a-while sort of supervisor. Not the sort of supervisor who’d dump her with an unprintable mission, an inexperienced trainee, and a rapid push out through the nearest Traverse exit point.
Do leave your latest input material with the nearest Desk; tag it with my name, and I’ll see that it gets processed.
Well, that was something, at least . . .
From the corridor outside came a sudden gust of wind and a thud. It was reminiscent of a pneumatic pressure tube delivering papers.
A pause. A knock on a nearby door.
‘Come in,’ Irene called, turning her chair to face it.
The door swung open to reveal a young man.
‘You must be Kai,’ Irene said, rising to her feet. ‘Do come in.’
He had the sort of beauty that instantly shifted him from a possible romance object to an absolute impossibility. Nobody got to spend time with people who looked like that, outside the front pages of newspapers and glossy magazines. His skin was so pale that she could see blue veins at his wrists and throat. And his hair was a shade of black that looked almost steely blue in the dim lights, braided down the back of his neck. His eyebrows were the same shade, like lines of ink on his face, and his cheekbones could have been used to cut diamonds, let alone cheese. He was wearing a battered black leather jacket and jeans that quite failed to play down his startling good looks, and his white T-shirt was not only spotlessly laundered, it was ironed and starched.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I am. You’re Irene, right?’
Even his voice deserved admirers: low, precise, husky. His casual choice of words seemed more like affectation than actual carelessness. ‘I am,’ Irene acknowledged. ‘And you’re my new trainee.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He strode into the room, letting the door close behind him. ‘And I’m finally getting out of this place.’
‘I see. Please sit down. I haven’t finished reading Coppelia’s email yet.’
He blinked at her, then strode across to the nearest chair and flung himself down into it, triggering a choking cloud of dust.
Handle matters smoothly and efficiently, and you may expect some spare time for private research when this is over. I regret having to send you out again this fast, but needs must, my dear Irene, and we must all make do with the resources available to us.
Yours affectionately,
Coppelia
Irene sat back and frowned at the screen. She was no conspiracy theorist, but if she had been, she could have constructed whole volumes based on that paragraph. ‘Coppelia says that you’ve got all the details on the mission,’ she said over her shoulder.
‘Yeah. Madame Coppelia,’ he stressed the honorific slightly, ‘gave me the stuff. Didn’t look like much.’
Irene turned to face him. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’ she said, extending her hand.
Kai reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a thin blue envelope. He handed it to her carefully, making the gesture courteous rather than a simple transfer. ‘There you go. Boss? Madame? Sir?’