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down
on the crate next to him.
    About fifteen years older than Alex, with graying temples
and a creased face, Marcus Procopio squinted at his private display and clicked
his tongue.
    “Do you remember me from Boston?” asked Alex.
    Marcus had been a prominent crystal researcher at BIT when
Alex was there. At the time, Marcus controlled half a floor of prime laboratory
space on the downtown campus. Beckman’s lab, where Juice and Alex had worked
together, took up the other half of that floor.
    Tilting his head, Marcus studied Alex. “You worked in
Beckman’s lab a while back.” His intonation put the words somewhere between a
statement and a question.
    Moving his hair behind his ear, Alex nodded.
    Marcus shifted his gaze to Anya Gerhardsson. “Did you study there
as well?”
    “I attended BIT,” said Anya, resting her hand on Alex’s
thigh. “But we didn’t know each other then. We met here on Mars. At this
garden, actually.” She moved her hand up to Alex’s shoulder and leaned against him.
“My first volunteer day was six months ago, and Alex and I have been a team
ever since.”
    Geez, Anya , he thought, put off by her incessant push
to get close to him. He liked her and enjoyed her company. They had fun when
they were together. But she wanted intimacy and he didn’t. It was Larry who had
helped Alex understand that he was a one-woman man and, for whatever reason,
Anya was not the one for him.
    Noting a hint of lilac in her hair, he said, “We’ve been
great friends from the day we met.”
    Anya pulled away, flashed a thin smile at Marcus, and looked
at her hands, now folded in her lap.
    The scene prompted a random thought as Alex contemplated the
Reds, Greens, and Blues being interchangeable humanoids. If he accepted this line
of reasoning, he would lose Larry as a friend.
    He’s a good listener .
    Whenever they talked in private, Larry responded and asked
questions that showed he was engaged in the conversation. In fact, Alex had
become so comfortable with Larry’s attentive and thoughtful companionship that,
for several months now, he found himself sharing his personal challenges, including
his quandary about Anya, who he liked as a friend but nothing more.
    Worried that a physical entanglement would end up causing
them both emotional pain, Alex had not responded to her advances. Not yet, at
least. She’s very determined.
    Marcus brought Alex back to the moment. “Ruga now has an
evidence trail of our meeting here today.” Swirling his finger, Marcus
indicated the three of them. “That means that from his perspective we are conspirators
against the Triada. I carry your sins. And I’m sorry to say it, but you now
carry mine. Or at least those of my sins that Ruga cares about, which I assure
you are substantial from his perspective.”
    He stopped talking, checked his com, and manipulated the
projected display Alex couldn’t see.
    “What are you doing?” asked Anya.
    “I’m getting alerts that there’s new monitoring activity in
this area. It must be from those Greens.” He again manipulated his display. “My
security block is working. They can’t see or hear us for now.” He lifted his
eyes. “But they’ll break my encryption soon. This place is no longer secure.”
    Already on edge, Alex digested Marcus’s words. He’d had unsettling—even
alarming—interactions with synbods, the latest with a Red just minutes earlier.
Deeper down, he felt guilty because he’d lied to Juice. He’d done so on impulse
and under pressure, but he’d lied nevertheless. And now the BIT garden—his
private refuge—was under scrutiny by the Triada.
    His tone reflected his emotional disquiet. “I just wanted to
chat. You never mentioned all this.” He gestured at the displays Marcus
monitored and in the general direction of where the Greens had been outside on
the rise. “And now you tell me that this place—my private refuge—is being
watched?”
    Marcus straightened his back. “Just to be