Page 37 of The Outcast
Banni didn’t budge. “Victor gave me clear instructions not to send anyone that I don’t feel comfortable with. They need to be able to assimilate. My gut is telling me that Keith will be a liability to this program, Aubri. Do you want him to mess everything up by getting jealous or possessive? He could ruin the future of this program before it gets off the ground. That’s my fear.”
“I’m with Banni on this. Keith gives me the creeps, Aubri,” I said.
“Then we’ll kick him out,” Indiana said resolutely. “I don’t care how qualified he is. We have to focus our energy on the people with the right mindset.”
Aubri was holding her glass with two hands. “Banni, you and I should tell him tonight. There’s no need for Keith to come back onto the mountain if we’ve made the decision.”
“Agreed.” Indiana lifted his glass to his mouth and drank a large gulp of beer. “And then there’s Allan. I’m thinking about your fight yesterday.” He was looking at me. “Are we tossing him out as well?”
Aubri scrunched up her mouth. “He had his warning so let’s give him time to show that he can change his attitude.”
Sitting straighter, I moved a knife on the table. “In his defense, Allan did come to apologize to me last night. He said that the constant rain had driven him a little insane.”
“And what about Lilly?” Aubri asked Banni. “Do you think she could handle the French culture?”
“I’m not sure.”
Aubri leaned back and crossed her arms. “She’s by far the weakest candidate and I found her crying this morning because she misses her family. I think we should cut her too. She wouldn’t last three months.”
Banni blew out a breath. “I’ve had that concern about her myself. It’s a shame because Lilly is a nice woman and she seemed eager in the beginning. I don’t know what happened, but it’s impossible not to notice that her enthusiasm has dwindled these past days.”
With a decisive dip of her chin, Aubri declared, “We’ll let Keith and Lilly know tonight. Anyone else we need to cut?”
There was silence.
“If you cut Keith and Lilly, will you then make two teams of four for this week?” Indiana asked.
“Yes.” Aubri looked from Indiana to me. “Sparrow, you’re very quiet. What are you thinking? Who are your favorites?”
I thought about it. “My favorites are Shiva, Beowulf, Aristotle, Bjorn, and Bianca.”
Aubri tilted her head. “You would choose Bianca over Allan and Franklin?”
“Allan and Franklin might be faster and stronger, but Bianca is a good team player, and she brings calmness to the group.”
“I can live with that,” Banni said in support. “How about we place Shiva, Beowulf, Aristotle, and Bianca in group A this coming week and then we’ll have Christopher, Bjorn, Allan, and Franklin in group B.”
“Fine.”
We all nodded or made sounds of agreement.
When the serving-bot placed bread on the table, Banni reached for a roll. “The good thing is that all eight will make excellent Explorers. We might still need to work on their mindset, but when it comes to their skills and competencies, I see no problems.”
“That’s great.” Indiana dug into the bread as well and extended the basket to me.
“I just wish there was a way for us to do a personality test that would give us some kind of guarantee.” Banni’s eyes glazed over and holding the bread in his hands, he stared out the large window to the left. I followed his gaze to see if he had spotted something but there was nothing but trees and a shop on the other side of the street.
“Victor was firm about us not bringing anyone with jealousy issues, but how can we tell for sure? It’s one thing for people to say that they wouldn’t get jealous, but none of these candidates except Bianca were ever in sexual relationships. The men’s sexual experience is limited to sex-bots and many of them have their own that they don’t have to share.”
Indiana chewed on his bread roll and swallowed. “What about you, Banni? You’ve never tried a sex-bot so why not take advantage of the brothel in town? Hell, you must be going out of your mind by now. You haven’t had sex in at least three weeks, have you?”
Banni pulled back in his chair. “Don’t take this the wrong way but fucking a robot doesn’t seem that appealing to me.”
“Why not? She’ll let you doanythingto her, and the newer models are very lifelike.”
Biting his lip, Banni scrunched up his face and looked to me. “What do you think, Sparrow?”
“Me?” I coughed when the bread I was chewing got stuck in my throat.
