I’ve got to know what they’re saying. It’s just a cough. I’ve had so much worse, back in the days when I used to hit the sauce real hard. I can control it. I have to.

I sneak beneath the grate and push the coughing urge down deep into my throat. Stay, goddamn it, stay.

What I see makes it all worth it. Above me stand a woman and a man standing in a sort of sub-basement boiler room. The women is all in black, while the man is wearing a dark grey suit over a turtleneck sweater. The sexualized machination of the woman’s movements remind me of . . . Tess. The woman is Tess.

“ . . . coming. I know he is. He won’t stop until he’s gotten to the bottom of it,” says Tess.

“How soon can we expect him?” the man replies.

“Not sure. I can’t be sure how much he knows already, or who’s told him what, for that matter. I have reason to think the rogue 101C might have spoken to him.”

“Dammit, that could ruin everything. What can we do to prepare for his arrival?”

“Nothing you haven’t done already. Tell the board I have this completely under control. Regardless of what they may think.”

“Are you sure, Tess? What will you do?”

“I’ll tell him to stand down, he’s out of his league, and bring him to Mr. LeCerc for confirmation.”

“And if he resists?”

“Then I’ll kill him. He is, after all, only a man. But I am so much more.” The metal claws emerge from her hand like a parlor magician conjuring a deck of cards.

“Alright, Tess. Make sure you do what you have to.”

“Of course, Father.”

And they walk out of the boiler room, the door slams shut behind them.

Let it out