THE MERGE AND CONTINUATION OF "IF IT WERE NOT SO" AND
"A THORNE IN DIEDRE'S SIDE"
JO ANZALONE WRITING CORT, TERRY, MAXIMUS
SHARON FERGUSON WRITING RACHEL, DIEDRE, BRIANNA
CHRIS SNYDER WRITING ALICIA, DINO
(NOTE TO READER: AS WITH MUCH CO-AUTHORED WRITING, THERE IS SOME OVERLAP AS TO THE WRITING OF CHARACTERS. SID IS WRITTEN BY ALL THREE, FROM TIME TO TIME JO PUTS WORDS IN RACHEL'S MOUTH AND SHARON SPEAKS FOR TERRY, ETC. IT SEEMS INEVITABLE.)
PART ONE
The designers of the research complex where NanoCorp/ Virtual Research now existed probably had not intended for the moniker
“
Some sneered at the appellation: the last thing they
needed in their world of business was the non-serious perception of a place
where wizards of industry turned out to be Humbugs. Most just laughed and joked about following
the yellow brick road home.
Sid 6.7 himself had delighted in the pop culture allusion from the moment he had found its image on the internet and ferreted out the variety of businesses that had taken up residence there and it was those power plays he guarded jealously as he replaced un-useable resources with those needed to establish NanoCorp, sub-SID-iary of Virtual Reality Research, Inc.
A virtual city it was, too; its asymmetrical
configuration not only housed luxurious office space and lobbies, it had a
self-sufficient atrium and food court as well, a newsstand, and amenities that
other office buildings could only hope to have in proximity. He had kept the courier business, replaced
the fast food counters with gourmet diners, and held continual court with
various smaller businesses that served NanoCorp in various capacities as a king
would with the serfs who viewed pleasing his whims the lesser of various evils when it came to finding space
elsewhere. And then, of course, there
was the medical clinic, which had to be added on and secured with specialists
who knew how to keep their mouths shut, not ask too many questions. Just patch them up and wait for the
paycheck. That’s all Sid demanded they
think about.
That especially applied to his Retrievers. This particular fact weighed heavily on Sid’s
mind this morning, a week after the dramatic return of Rachel from her
assignment, the near-death of their latest retrieval, Cort, and the subsequent
news of Terry’s foray into
But Rachel…ah, what a trial she was turning out to
be! The outrageousness of that young
woman, letting herself become smitten by that…that…ragged preacher! As if Cort were all that important to his
plans anyway! He was only interested in
testing the waters. It was not as if Cort’s
presence were really needed anyway…
Sid cracked his knuckles in unconscious frustration.
Rachel, especially, had forgotten the number one rule he had spelled out upon
her induction to the specialized crew: obedience to the command. And that obedience had been turned into a
crusade the likes of which now made the blue sauce in his veins boil. Rachel had had the audacity to fall in love
with one of his projects…and that would not be good in the long run….not if he
were to achieve what he wanted.
Sid stood now in the conference suite in the uppermost
level of his wing, leaning against the full-length window to peer out at the
dawn breaking over the treetops. The
room was a secluded space set apart by a private elevator and overlooking the
prettiest view of the park. Below, a
small natural lake gleamed like a silver badge, its borders preserved and
fostered by piers and landscaping, outlined by a jogging trail, punctuated by
the occasional bench. Sid only scarcely
noticed the orange sun turning the green glass into a prism of spectral
light. His sight was focused on a dark
figure sauntering across the wet grass, hands in pockets, a rather old
fashioned wide brimmed hat tilted cockily on his head. Cort.
Sid’s eyes narrowed at the sight of Cort coming to one
of those benches and sitting down upon it with a rather satisfied air, or so it
seemed to Sid. It could only be Cort –
which meant Rachel had arrived. He could
feel nanosauce pressure rise. Rachel had
been saving her vacation hours and had used them to help Cort settle in…and
there had been little in the way of bringing her back into the office, despite
his best intimidation tactics with her supervisor…who was now sauntering in
himself, all Aussie-fied and bloke-ish.
Ugh.
He didn’t bother turning to greet Terry,
forever protecting Rachel. He remained resolutely still in his
power-stance, hands locked behind his back.
He could see Bud White come in behind the SAS veteran in the reflection
of the windows, could hear the sound of the two men breathing. Rachel was on her way up….
“Sid,” Bud greeted quietly, coming to stand next to
Sid at the window. Sid didn’t answer.
“I have Deidre’s application here,” Terry
informed. He could be heard shuffling
papers on the conference table, whistling slightly to himself. “She’s in town and will be here this
afternoon to look at the place. We may
have a new employee.”
“Good,” Sid snapped.
“Maybe she can follow orders better than other retrievers I know.”
There was a moment of silence, which Sid found
amusing. Funny how his celluloid kin
could respond so easily the same way, no matter what they dressed as, how they
talked, or when they chose to act.
“And just what do you mean by that,
Sid just turned his head enough to give Bud his most
acid stare, smiling slightly to add that extra bit of uncertainty. Bud had learned, though, to control his own
features. A slight muscle in Bud’s eyes
twitched and Sid knew the
“It means I could very well find a replacement for
Rachel,” Sid replied, his tone the same one used by school teachers with a
particularly slow student. “It’s not
that hard…just so long as they know not to get all hormonal over Russell
Crowe.”
“And you would have done by now, I suppose, except you
wanted to check with me first, right?” came Terry’s point of view. His tone
implied a challenge of its own.
Sid spun on his heels and marched to the head of the
conference table.
“I don’t think I like your attitude,” he hissed.
“I don’t think I like your implication,” Bud
interjected.
“And what am I implying?”
“That the effort we spent in training Rachel was
wasted.”
“Wasn’t it? She
is now incapable of sound judgment.
That preacher has her completely besotted.”
“That preacher is the one you wanted to verify certain
capabilities. What are you saying,
“There’s no need to get nasty, Wendell,” Sid snarled,
immaculate hands playing with his collar in an unconscious gesture to reassure
himself that he was still the most perfectly dressed being in the room. Bud always looked a bit on the short side of
disheveled, his attire simple, unbranded.
No department store sales for him.
He went straight for the bargain bin.
Terry always looked as if he had just wandered in from the woods. Both of them made Sid feel as if he had to
check his appearance at least every…10 seconds or so. Just so there was not a random metamorphosis
into fashion degradation by proximity.
“But if the girl can’t follow instructions, she needs to be…made
redundant. I can’t have hormonal hens
losing their perspective every time a Crowe walks by…unless it’s me,” he added
hastily and without a trace of irony.
“Rachel countermanded her training and she should be well aware of the
consequences.”
“Which will well be more than you can handle, mate, if
you make good on your threat,” Terry interceded, before Bud could form his own
reply. “She’s made three successful
retrievals already, has helped develop procedures that have cut…”
Sid snorted in derision.
“You didn’t read the report, did you? She failed to follow through with those
established procedures by hanging around for three days in Warp Time. No contact, no explanation, no requests for
help…”
“She contacted me,” Terry growled. “She used the uplink to try and get ahold of
me…and I gave her carte blanche to do what she thought right, especially since
you wouldn’t allow any others to go with her.
I believed in her ability to handle it, and I still do.”
Sid paced the conference room, seething. That was just the point, he wanted to
scream. The procedure was clear in who
she was to contact and when. But Terry
seemed willing to excuse that…and the girl wasn’t even here yet this morning!
A thought struck Sid who ended his prowl to stand in
front of Terry, narrowing ice-green eyes.
“Do you also believe she obeyed your command to leave
behind weapons? All her weapons? Including….a particular…favored….weapon of
hers?” Sid asked softly, watching
Terry’s expression carefully.
Which had the result he knew it would. The Aussie’s eyes narrowed in a frighteningly
familiar expression.
“I had believed her…” Terry began, uncertainly.
“That’s too bad, because she failed you as well in
that regard,” Sid chuckled, turning away to resume his position at the
window. Cort was leaning down to give
food to one of the geese. How quaint,
Sid gagged. As if Cort could hear him,
the former priest turned to look over the back of the bench and stare at
“She took her sword with her into the movie,
Terrence,” Sid crowed, grinning with satisfaction at the marvelous figure he
cut in the reflection of the glass. He
glanced over to the SAS officer, who listened silently, a white tinge to his
face despite the stoic expression. “She
disagreed with your judgment to leave behind weapons for which she was not
trained and took Sindri into a time and place where such an anachronism would
have easily meant death as much as a badly handled gun.”
“Is this true, Rachel?” Sid heard Bud ask. He turned to find the Retriever standing in
the doorway, face chalk-pale in the fluorescent light. She was wearing loose slacks, a casual blouse
and a vest over that, her dark hair pulled up in a half-Gibson, accentuating the
widows peak pointing daintily into her forehead.
She didn’t answer at first. She was carrying a paper binder, thick with
pages of her research, drawings, notes and memos collected for the retrieval
and she laid this quietly, too quietly on the table as she chose a seat that
perched in the middle between the ends of the conference table, making her
defensive position clear: she wasn’t choosing either side.
“Yes,” she finally answered as Terry stared her
down. She shifted uncomfortably in a few
moments of silence. “And it’s a good
thing I did, too, because Cort and I would have been utterly defenseless when
Dimetri Zoloft showed up.”
“Who?” Bud
asked, instinct compelling him to draw nearer to her. Regardless of what Terry or Sid thought of
her job stability now, she needed someone to stand up for her.
Terry let out a deep breath, somewhere between a groan
of despair and a sigh of dismay. He
leaned over his own papers on the table, shaking his head in some private
regret.
“I asked you once before, Sid.” It was Rachel’s turn to sound acid. “Are you going to explain why a Russian has
particular knowledge of the Warp and an even more intense interest in acquiring
Cort for God only knows what reasons of his own?”
Sid stared back at her, frozen in the best imitation
of nonchalance he could muster at the moment.
Child. Ignorant, ignorant child.
Sniffing as if he were suddenly displeased with the
frigid tinge in the air, Sid turned his back on her, turned back to the
panorama of parkland below, back to watching the rag-tag priest in his
contemplation. Only…Cort had left his
seat to round the bench, to lean against its back, to face the building and
stare up with utter beatitude at the multitude of glass panels gleaming in the
morning sun. Facing me down, Sid thought
with a sharp twinge of hatred. Seeking
Rachel out and facing me down to spite me.
“One way or the other,” came Rachel’s voice at his
elbow. She had come to the window as
well. “I’m going to find out why it is
you went to all that trouble to train me, to send me in after Cort, why you
think its so necessary that he be a part of the next retrieval.” She leaned her forehead against the glass,
staring down at Cort with a small smile on her lips. A hand lifted to touch the glass, as if she
were transmitting a message down to him.
Sid tried not to show he noticed her small presence as
she joined him at the window, but he couldn’t help it. His head turned a fraction of a nanometer,
looking for the emotion he could hear in her voice.
“And when I do,” Rachel concluded, showing no sign of
turning to Sid herself, “you’ll consider yourself lucky that I left Sindri at
home for this meeting.”
^ * ^ * ^ * ^
The grass was still wet, heavily coated with dew. He smiled down at it as he walked toward the
lake. So much...moisture. A
desert-dweller, he was not used to such abundance. Following the jogging trail for a way around
the neat edge of the silvery water, he found a bench to his liking and sat,
looking out, his back to the buildings that formed the nerve center of
NanoCorp. He'd be going there later. Wasn't really looking forward to it, but
Rachel seemed excited about some proposition that she knew was going to be made
to him. If it involved her, being with
her, then he would go. Only for that.
Taking off his hat, he combed his fingers through his
hair, then set the hat beside him on the bench.
The sun was coming up across the lake, gradually turning its silver into
glowing ambers and oranges. Spreading
his arms out along the top back of the bench, he stretched his legs, crossing
them at the ankles...just watching the changes in colorings on
The sun cleared the distant trees, shining into his
face. He closed his eyes, letting the
soft warmth of it bathe his skin. She
was there. Painted on the insides of his
lids. He'd found he couldn't close his eyes...ever...any more without the sight
of her instantly being there.
She was with him always, sleeping, waking, and as he
thought of her now, he felt that warm rush of wanting her stir through
him. She had gone on into the building,
saying he would be sent for when it was time, but he was worried. Sid would be
there.
Sid. He tensed
at the mere thought of the man. He
better go easy on Rachel. He shook his
head slightly, side to side. He'd
better!
The goose wandered close, honking suddenly, and Cort
opened his eyes, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Hey, there, feller," he said. "You lookin' for some bread?" He had stuck a large piece of his bagel....strange
word that...in his pocket when he knew he was coming to the lake, and pulled it
out now, breaking off a big chunk,
tossing it in front of the bird.
"So, goose, do you work for Sid, too?" He turned his head, looking back at the
building. "They're in there
now," he continued, fixing the goose with a serious gaze, "talking
about what to do with me." He
tossed another chunk. "Must admit
I'm curious. What they think I can do
for 'em...what they think they can
The goose honked again. "Sorry, guy, but that's all I've
got." Saying that made him
think. What DID he have? Everything belonged to NanoCorp. Did HE belong to them, too? Was that how they saw him? Something they...owned? He rubbed his hand back and forth across his
chin. His hand. Yes, his right hand. It was perfect now, good as
He sighed deeply, watching the goose wander away. Thank heavens for Rachel. Without her, all this would be harder to
bear. He probably wouldn't even have
stuck around. But she was here, tied to
this place, and as long as she was, he was, too. In all the world, she
He smiled thinking of her. He couldn't help it. She made him feel like that, like
smiling. Probably hadn't smiled so much
in his entire life.
He wanted to be with her now. Looking at the building again, he wondered
which of the large panels of glass she was behind. Could she see him? She knew he would be waiting by the lake. He hoped she could see him and would feel
less alone because of it. Standing, he
walked around behind the bench, leaning against it, presenting himself toward
the building.
"Rachel," he sent silently across the vast
lawn, "I'm here, Rachel. Thinking
about you. Loving you."
^ * ^ * ^ * ^
“So Dorothy thinks she has discovered the Wicked Witch
of the West, then? Is that why it took
you three days to remember your training?” Sid huffed, peeling away from the
window to take his place at the head of the table. “Hmmmm?
Took so long to realize you were just part of the perpetual loop? Until you had a house dropped on you? Were you seduced by a scarecrow?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, stop with the stupid allusions,
will you?” Rachel snapped in return,
following to join the others at the table.
“I didn’t ask any questions at all about why I was going for Cort, like
the good little girl that I am, and I went in as prepared as you allowed me to
be.”
“That you did, only you wasted time...my time, company
time, Cort’s time…ah, but yes! That was
your intention from the start, wasn’t it?”
Sid goaded. “Days of pleasure in
a dusty little Western town. A broken
man held captive by his rescuer. Maybe
you should have asked Ellen to join in!”
“I did the best I could! He was going into shock when I found
him!” Rachel cried, too shocked by Sid’s
insinuation to think of anything more than that to fling back at him.
“Which, if you had taken advantage of our wonderful
medical facilities, would have been a moot point. But you had other intentions, Rachel. Your behavior when we finally brought him in
proved that,” Sid continued, a nasty smile twisting his features as Rachel
stared at him in helpless fury. He was
every bit in the right to call her on the carpet for this. She didn’t dare look at Terry, all too
certain what he must be thinking. Bud
was hovering in the periphery of her vision, ready to stand his ground for
her.
“What the hell is going on?” Terry bellowed, losing his own temper at
last.
“Your prize pupil, O Thunder From Down Under, has
fallen in love with the priest!” Sid bit
out each word as though they were pieces of debris.
“That’s really none of your business,” she whimpered
in staunch defense. Cort had been right
to worry about what Sid would do to her.
Now she just wanted to get it over and done with so she could run to
find him by the lake. “He was in
shock. He needed triage before I could
do anything…that much I was trained for!”
“Yes, we have our own
“Shut up!” Bud
ordered, taking Rachel by the arm and leading her to the chair, settling her in
as he would an injured lady. Once he saw
Rachel in her seat, he closed the distance between himself and Sid with every
muscle tensed for vicious retaliation if Sid continued his tirade. “Just keep going with your shit,
“If Sid won’t tell you who Dimetri is, I will,” Terry
interjected. Rachel turned to see her
supervisor fall into the chair at the other end of the conference table,
expression grim. “Somehow, it doesn’t
surprise me that he’s shown up,” he continued, directing his comments to Rachel
now, gesturing with a hand for Bud to sit down as well. “But it was our supposition that it would be
in another film, not Cort’s.” He sighed,
rubbing his temples as he tried to organize his thoughts along with his
emotions. “That he was able to access
Cort is very troubling, indeed.”
^ * ^
"I think," Terry added after a few moments
of thought, “there is a mole in
NanoCorp. Mikol seems to know what we plan as soon as we plan it. Mikol is, well, Sid's counterpart at
Grovensky Construction, the cover name for Mikol's own nanotechnology
laboratories in eastern Europe. Dimetri...Dimetri Zoloft...is his number one
retriever. We thought Mikol was only interested in Hugh Jackman characters
until Dimetri showed up in Redemption. Still not sure just...why...his sudden
change of direction. We'd heard rumors, rumors about The Insider, that he might
be going after Jeffrey, so were completely unprepared for his being after
Cort."
"I'm sorry, Rachel. You should have had back-up,
shouldn't have had to face him alone like you did. Wasn't right." He fixed
his eyes on Sid a moment. "Not
right at all."
He sighed again. "I should have been with you,
not off in
"Not that this one turned out all that
badly." His focus suddenly turned inward and he smiled slightly. "But
more on that later."
"It seems Mikol developed a sudden interest in
our good Mr. Cortland Wells. The very fact that he sent Dimetri himself after
Cort speaks volumes." He turned his head
Sid's eyes sparkled. "Yes," he added.
"This is the most important mission...ever." He tipped his chair
back, pressing his fingertips together, smiling with some inner
satisfaction. "Ever."
Then he smacked his chair legs back down, glaring at
Rachel. "And NO slip-ups from YOU! I will tolerate none of your aberrant
behavior this time! NONE! And if you do decide to pull one of your stupid
stunts...you will be...terminated... immediately!"
He glared at her so fiercely that Rachel gulped, not
sure at all what he meant by 'terminated.'
"Easy, Sid!" Terry interjected. "She'll
be with me this time. No need to get nasty."
Sid fastened his eyes on Terry, then lowered his lids
halfway. "You think you've seen 'nasty', Mr. Thorne? I assure you, you have no idea what the word
might involve." Sid looked back at Rachel. "Nor do you want to...find
out."
"Wh...what's so special about this particular
mission?" Rachel stammered.
Sid smiled again, cocking his head to one side,
raising his eyes to the ceiling. "Maximus," he said, the name curling
up out of his mouth, practically hovering in the air. "The other...
When both Terry and Bud looked rather shocked at what
he was saying, he smiled even more broadly, enjoying the expressions on their
faces. "Ying and Yang," he said. "Together we are the whole ball
of wax. My opposite. Everything I am not...incarnated
Terry's mouth was partially open. He shut it with a
sharp snap of his teeth. He should have...known. "What do you plan to do
with Maximus?" he asked warily.
"Do? Why, Terry, what makes you think I would
'do' anything to, um, with him?"
"Because I know you, Sid."
Sid grinned. "Nice of you to think so. We all
need our little delusions."
Terry blew out a long breath. "You wouldn't
jeopardize the long-term goals of all this, would you?"
"Me?" Sid replied innocently. "No,
Terry. All that's way too important. But the General is the single most
important aspect of the entire thing." He turned his gaze back to Rachel.
"And you, my dear, will keep that in mind. At all times! You do not want
to...disappoint...me on this one."
She stuck her chin in the air defensively. "I
won't."
"Good," he said. "See that you
don't."
Bud had been listening silently. "Maybe I should
go, too?"
"No, Mr. White. I have need of you at headquarters.
All we have on our platter now is to convince the other two members of the
expedition that they ARE members of the expedition."
"You'd better leave that to me, then," Terry
said firmly. "Cort, from what I
hear, doesn't care for you. And Diedre's not even met you yet."
"True," Sid agreed. "See that you
convince them."
Cort stood there by the bench a long time, just
looking at the windows. What was going on in there? His level of concern rose
as time passed. She'd said there would
be four
The corner of his lip curled at the mere thought of
him. Hard. Cold. He didn't like it that the man was more likely than not
blasting Rachel.
He took about 5 steps toward the building then
stopped. She had been firm. He was not
to come until he'd been sent for. How
long? How long until then?
He'd stopped with his foot on a long, thick twig. Stooping, he picked it up, then eyes still on
the windows, began to break the twig into little pieces.
^ * ^
* ^
With the suggestion Terry made of the presence of a
mole in their midst, Rachel felt the knot swishing around in the pit of her
stomach begin to twist, livid with fear, writhing until her shoulder muscles
were clenched against it. That would
make sense, her brain chattered, in as far as how Dimetri seemed to know who
she was and how to deal with her. He had
known exactly when to find her, what she would try to do, what she would carry
with her…
And the tone of doom that colored Terry’s words
concerning Dimetri’s interest in Cort made the worm of dread flip even
more. That Sid was hell-bent on reaming
her for so many things concerning Cort began to fade into the background once
he got in his last shots concerning the rapier.
She didn’t feel the least bit guilty for it…not any more at any
rate. A tiny part of her was ready to
tell even Terry to his face that she’d do it again if she were forced to. Having that weapon had been her assurance
against contingencies, despite what her trainers had recommended, had
required.
Oh yes.
She had
learned her lesson about the Time After, the perpetual loop, the way nothing
seemed to resolve once the story was concluded, the filming done.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t follow her own
instincts.
And now this new mission….the worm dissolved into a
painful nausea when Sid indicated Cort as useful insofar as acquiring yet
another character. Bastard! He had been saying all along that Cort needed
to be brought over, but she had assumed… she’d had no idea Sid viewed Cort as a
stepping-stone. The thought of Cort
landing in the 21st without much more company than Sid…had she not
been…she bit her lip and covered her face momentarily. She couldn’t decide what shade of horror she
felt the most and it welled up in her as a sob.
She pinched the space between her forefinger and thumb. Control yourself! With that, she managed to squelch the sob
into something more like a sigh.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus on Cort’s face,
how it looked when he had sung softly to her at the dance, tried to recapture
his voice as it wove its way around her.
They were bound together now, like fused silk. Some Thing or Some One was making it so…and
now they were here, together, trap or no.
A flash image of him looking up at the glass windows, searching for some
sign of her, gazing with all his love and light pouring out steadied her
breathing. It took everything she had to
keep from jumping up and leaving the conference to rejoin him outside.
But, no. She
had to get this over and done with so she could fetch him and bring him in to
the new fold. So she could hold onto
him.
Rachel lifted her head to watch Terry confront Sid, a
slight bafflement causing her thoughts to change course. She had been afraid of Sid…but she expected
Sid to be supremely hateful. Terry,
however, her supervisor, her trainer, her friend…now HE had been the one she
was really worried about. She had
promised…with her fingers crossed behind her back no less…but promised not to
take any more than what she had been instructed to take. And they had parted ways, she to a fencing
session, he to
Yes, she realized that the person that was really
making her nervous about the trouble she was in over Sindri was Terry…only the
nervousness had to do with disappointment… the fear of disappointing him. He was such a leader, Rachel reflected. Someone whose good opinion mattered. He’d said nothing about Sindri, nothing about
her feelings for Cort. She wondered how
much he was able to find out, aside from the heated exchange several minutes
ago. She wondered if he were planning his
own dressing down later.
She shivered, unable to wrap her emotions around
that. That would hurt more than Sid
threatening to ‘terminate’ her, she thought.
She felt Bud shift uneasily beside her. He sat in the chair next to her, stiff with
resolve to stay in his own seat. Rachel
wasn’t completely sure what it was Bud was ever assigned to do. He had only come on one other mission and
that was to bring John Biebe over. She
had completely blocked out his presence entirely while listening to her own
thoughts, listened to Sid’s sniping, Terry’s confident slap-downs. She and Bud exchanged glances when Sid
sneered at him about going after Maximus as well. Was
that relief in his face or was he as dismayed as she was?
Bud was no more compliant with Sid’s wishes
than she was much of the time, and that was how the two of them had originally
formed their
friendship: a common enemy.
Rachel patted Bud’s arm sympathetically and he patted
her hand in gratitude. He had been so
good to her this past week. She tried
hard to think of a way to let him know, but at the moment her mind was utter
white noise. The only clear thing in her
mind was that she wanted to be next to Cort.
And he wasn’t going to take too kindly to being told
he was a necessary part for the extraction of yet another unwitting victim,
Rachel mused.
^ * ^ * ^ * ^
Alicia West was far from a happy woman.
She exited the elevator to march down the fourth floor
corridor, mentally reviewing the reasons why she had been called away from an
exceptionally charming
But leave it to Sid to find a way to spoil things, she
thought, as she peered into the open offices of Terry and Sid. No one
there.
No, she wasn't happy at all.
Turning a corner, she heard annoyed voices coming from the private conference
room. An eyebrow shot up on her fine brow. It sounded as if Sid were making one or
A cat-sly smile grew wide on her face at that
particular thought.
She opened the conference room door and walked in
unannounced. All talking ceased. All eyes turned to her.
Sid grew visibly blue at the sight of her, but Alicia
could also tell by his narrowed eyes that he was far from pleased to see her.
"Alicia!" He cried. "Back so soon? I...I mean, we hadn’t expected you back for some
time." He flicked a quick glare over the others in the room.
He suspected that Bud had called Alicia and told her what was going on.
Mentally cursing the man, Sid rose from his chair and joined Alicia at the
door. It wouldn't look good if both bosses were at odds with one another.
"Get your people prepared for the next mission,
Thorne," he barked at Terry, straightening clothing that never
rumpled. "I don't want anymore mistakes made. This one is too
important for the continued success of NanoCorp."
Alicia restrained the urge to belt Sid. "Quit
throwing your meager weight around,
"Do what you need to do Terry." Alicia
turned to the Australian to say. "You've got my full support."
Terry smiled his thanks.
Taking hold of Sid's purple suit sleeve, she drew him
out of the room closing the door behind them.