Read Isolation for Free Online Page B

to have no confidence that she could pull it off. She turned off the water and stood in the remnants of the steam, planning her attack and her homework and her poem all at once. It was easy—after all, she was nearly five months old. It was time for a bigger challenge.
    The door to the locker room opened—down a hall and around two corners, but with the water off she heard it clearly. The footsteps and the breathing marked the newcomer as male, and the lack of any link data marked him as a human. Latimer, perhaps? He’d never come to the showers before. She grabbed her towel and wrapped it around her.
    Latimer appeared at the edge of the shower room and paused in the entryway. Heron snapped to attention, her feet sliding just slightly across the thick tile floor.
    “At ease,” he said, dismissing her formality with a wave. His voice was soft and casual, more easygoing than she’d ever heard him. He sauntered into the shower room, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a thin brown bottle. “You did well on your drills today.” It was late, and they were the only two people in the entire locker area. He walked toward her slowly. “You’ve mastered every obstacle course we have, even the broken one they closed for being too dangerous. Your pistol accuracy has surpassed the human world record, and your long-range rifle work is some of the best I’ve ever seen. You convinced your new Chinese teacher you were a native speaker, and you tricked your new math teacher into thinking you were a physics professor, waiting in the same room for another student. You can run, shoot, think, and lie your way out of every problem we’ve ever given you. I gotta say, I’m impressed.” He was directly in front of her now, nearly an arm’s length away. His breath smelled faintly of alcohol. “But that’s not all there is to being a spy.”
    Heron ran through the list of other topics she’d studied: acting, strategy, computer science, electronics, and more. She wasn’t yet an expert in all of them, but she was getting there. They’d even started her in some piloting programs, running basic tank drills with the new Beta-model girls fresh out of the vats. Latimer said she’d be starting aircraft classes soon as well—was that what this was? He seemed to be leading up to some kind of new instruction, but what?
    “Have some.” He handed her the bottle and stepped away, wandering through the empty shower. “So this is where you guys shower. For some reason it always surprises me how much the women’s locker room looks like the men’s. Seems like they ought to be more different, but I don’t know how. Or why, really; it’s kind of a stupid idea anyway.”
    Heron sniffed the bottle: definitely alcohol. And it was nearly full. Had he brought it specifically for her? “What’s this for?” she asked.
    “That’s beer,” he said, turning back toward her. “It’s for drinking. Have some.” He took a few steps toward her and leaned against the wall, about ten feet down where it was dry. “You’re a spy, Heron; you’re going to have to drink sooner or later. Standard training schedule for a Theta has you introduced to alcohol at six months, but I figure, what the hell, huh? You’re a big girl now. Have a drink.”
    She took a sip and grimaced. “I don’t like it.”
    “Just try it.” His voice was more insistent now, creeping up from “casual” toward “commanding officer.” She stopped herself from frowning, refusing to show disapproval to her trainer, and took another drink. It tasted sour, like something that had gone bad.
    She kept her face passive. “People drink this on purpose? For fun?”
    Latimer walked toward her and took the bottle, then knocked back a long, deep drink that nearly drained it. He was standing just a few inches away, far closer than he needed to. He lowered the bottle and smacked his lips. “I guess you’re not getting the full effect of it anyway, are you? Crazy Partial