Page 3 of Redstone
“And the weaker my case will be.”
Ray smiled thinly. “It’s none of my business how your legal team is managing preparations. Your mods will be deactivated tomorrow, and you’ll leave the following day. No one in Redstone has active mods, so you won’t have to worry aboutcompeting,” he added, completely insincerely. Kyle shuddered lightly and wished he hadn’t as Ray’s smile grew.
“You’re going to wish you’d never stepped out of my shadow, little brother,” Ray promised him. “You think you’re smart, but you have no idea about the level I’m operating on. Whatever you have planned, whatever you’ve been counting on to save you—it’s not going to happen. You’re just a bump in the road, Kyle. I’ll roll over you and come back stronger than before. It’s a shame you won’t be around to absorb the lessons of your perfidy.” He nodded his head. “Goodbye, Kyle.”
Words fought behind Kyle’s teeth, curses battling entreaties, loathing toiling against pleas. In the end he kept his mouth shut, not trusting what would come out of it. Ray waited for a long moment, the strangely eager look of anticipation giving way to disappointment before he finally turned and left.
The inner door shut, and Kyle felt like his legs had been snapped in half. He collapsed back onto the bed, folding into a hundred sharp angles like a protein, body and mind and soul all in a state of disarray. His heart was going too fast, and his brain felt like it was muffled from cryosleep, slow and dizzy.
No one else could do this to him, no one but Ray. Kyle hated the effect his brother had on him, hedid, so why did everything in him feel like it was dying when Ray said goodbye, like it might be the last time they ever saw each other? Why did he want to scream and beg Ray to come back to him, to forgive him, to hold him again? Kyle would never give in to those impulses, but they were so strong, so fierce …
The sudden blare of the alarm startled him out of his swirling circle of self-loathing. Kyle looked up as a synthetic warden hummed into the room, an expression of polite concern on its artificial face.
“You have injured yourself, inmate.”
“I have?” Too late, Kyle realized that he’d bitten right through his lip, warm and sticky blood flowing over his chin.
“I will take you to the infirmary.” The warden moved forward, and before Kyle could object, picked him up off the bed, perfectly supporting the core of his body as its programming demanded.
“I can walk just fine.”
“That is not protocol, inmate. I will transport you.”
Shit. Kyle rolled his eyes but didn’t try to escape the warden’s grasp. It might be the last time a jailer showed him any sort of consideration even if it was completely unnecessary—he should get as much out of it as he could. Kyle touched his chin, then looked at the bright red stains on his fingertips.
How much blood did he really share with Ray? Why had he and Foster been so at odds? Those were questions that had plagued Kyle for his entire life, ever since he first met Ray as a small child.
The introduction had been brief, an interlude in a space station as both parties traveled elsewhere. Kyle remembered the chill in both voices as his brother and father greeted each other and the way Ray’s voice got somehow colder when he addressed Kyle’s mother, Haven. Kyle had expected to be ignored, but instead, Ray knelt down in front of him. He hadn’t said anything, just stared for a long moment. Kyle remembered how his mother’s hands had tightened on his shoulders to almost the point of pain, like she was going to jerk him back at any second.
He blinked in surprise as the warden lay him down on a Regen bed. “You will be well momentarily, inmate. This event of self-harm has been documented.”
Just what he needed. “Great.” The Regen tube closed over his head, and Kyle settled back against the soft, contouring surface of the bed. It was overkill for a bitten lip, but he had the feeling that this, too, was going to be the stuff of dreams before long.
He’d better enjoy being healthy while it was still an option.
Chapter three
Even after seventeen months as his aide, Tamara Carson had a hard time keeping up with her boss. Raymond Alexander was a tall man, with long legs and a purposeful stride that she could only match at a trot, and trot she did, taking notes all the while.
“I want you overseeing all of his medical care until the transfer to Redstone is complete. Don’t let them be soft with his mods. I want a complete shutdown per the court order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No private communication, everything he says to anyone is to be monitored. I want copies of all exchanges sent to me and be sure to flag the ones that occur between him and anyone in the Central System, especially Admiral Liang.”
“Yes, sir, except …”
The president scowled at her. “Exceptwhat, Tamara?”
“Well, sir, your brother’s conversations with his counsel are legally mandated to be private. I can’t get you copies of those.”
“True, I suppose. For now.” Raymond stopped, shut his eyes, and rolled his shoulders out, the most visible signs of tension that Tamara had ever seen in him. “Get me everything else and put an order into the courts for a tighter level of surveillance on speech monitoring for Kyle. We might get permission for keyword containment.”
“Yes, sir.” Raymond started walking again, and Tamara picked her pace up to a jog.
“The transfer to Redstone should be done within a week. I want you to stick to him and his entourage until that transfer is complete, you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
