After the blaring trumpet call’s third repetition, her hand terminal beeped once and fell into a sullen silence. She’d been holding her toothbrush for the last half hour. The toothpaste had started to grow a hard skin. She ran it under warm water to soften it back up and started brushing her teeth.
“I’m not a traitor,” she said to herself, the toothbrush making the words unintelligible. “Not.”
Not even standing here in the bathroom of her UN-provided apartment, brushing her teeth with UN toothpaste and rinsing the sink with UN-provided water. Not while she clutched her good Martian toothbrush and scrubbed until her gums bled.
“Not,” she said again, daring mirror Bobbie to disagree.
She put the toothbrush back into her small toiletry case, carried it into the living room, and placed it in her duffel. Everything she owned stayed in the duffel. She’d need to move fast when her people called her home. And they would. She’d get a priority dispatch on her terminal, the red-and-gray border of the MCRN CINC-COM flashing around it. They’d tell her that she needed to return to her unit immediately. That she was still one of them.
That she wasn’t a traitor for staying.
She straightened her uniform, slid her now quiet terminal into her pocket, and checked her hair in the mirror next to the door. It was pulled into a bun so tight it almost gave her a face-lift, not one single hair out of place.
“I’m not a traitor,” she said to the mirror. Front hallway mirror Bobbie seemed more open to this idea than bathroom mirror Bobbie had. “Damn straight,” she said, then slammed the door behind her when she left.
She hopped on one of the little electric bikes the UN campus made available everywhere, and was in the office three minutes before five a.m. Soren was already there. No matter what time she came in, Soren always beat her. Either he slept at his desk or he was spying on her to see what time she set her alarm for each morning.
“Bobbie,” he said, his smile not even pretending to be genuine.
Bobbie couldn’t bring herself to respond, so she just nodded and collapsed into her chair. One glance at the darkened windows in Avasarala’s office told her the old lady wasn’t in yet. Bobbie pulled up her to-do list on the desktop screen.
“She had me add a lot of people,” Soren said, referring to the list of people Bobbie was supposed to call in her role as Martian military liaison. “She really wants to get a hold of an early draft of the Martian statement on Ganymede. That’s your top priority for the day. Okay?”
“Why?” Bobbie said. “The actual statement came out yesterday. We both read it.”
“Bobbie,” Soren said with a sigh that said he was tired of explaining simple things to her, but a grin that said he really wasn’t. “This is how the game is played. Mars releases a statement condemning our actions. We go back channel and find an early draft. If it was harsher than the actual statement that was released, then someone in the dip corps argued to tone it down. That means they’re trying to avoid escalating. If it was milder in the early draft, then they’re deliberately escalating to provoke a response.”
“But since they know you’ll get those early drafts, then that’s meaningless. They’ll just make sure you get leaks that give you the impression they want you to have.”
“See? Now you’re getting it,” Soren said. “What your opponent wants you to think is useful data in figuring out what they think. So get the early draft, okay? Do it before the end of the day.”
But no one talks to me anymore because now I’m the UN’s pet Martian, and even though I’m not a traitor, it is entirely possible that everyone else thinks I am.
“Okay.”
Bobbie pulled up the newly revised list and made the first connection request of the day.
“Bobbie!” Avasarala yelled from her desk. There was any number of electronic means for getting Bobbie’s attention, but she almost never saw Avasarala use them. She yanked her earbud free and stood up. Soren’s smirk was of the psychic variety; his face didn’t change at all.
“Ma’am?” Bobbie said, taking a short step into Avasarala’s office. “You bellowed?”
“No one likes a smart-ass,” Avasarala said, not looking up from her desk terminal. “Where’s my first draft of that report? It’s almost lunchtime.”
Bobbie stood a little straighter and clasped her arms behind her back.
“Sir, I regret to inform you that I have been unable to find anyone willing to release the early draft of the report to me.”
“Are you standing at attention?” Avasarala said, looking up at her for the first time. “Jesus. I’m not about to march you out to the firing squad. Did you try everyone on the list?”
“Yes, I—” Bobbie stopped for a moment and took a deep breath, then took a few more steps into the office. Quietly she said, “No one talks to me.”
The old woman lifted a snow-white eyebrow.
“That’s interesting.”
“It is?” Bobbie said.