Lewis didn't just sense it, he saw it. The meetings in his office were missing an energy that was present when he joined the team on the factory floor.
Lewis hadn't gotten where he was, wasn't able to write as well as he did, without a pretty good understanding of the human mind. But the old bear Parker had made it more difficult for him by not reacting as Lewis would have initially expected.
Parker wasn't jealous, at least not in a territorial way, but there was no doubt that he wasn't himself when Trillium was around. With a word, Lewis changed that. From now on Trillium would leave the office when they were meeting there. Remove that issue so that Parker could focus on the topics at hand.
Trillium started to protest when he first mentioned it, but she must have seen it as well for her protests faded quickly and she simply nodded before turning back to look out the window.
Monday arrived and the evening approached, the sun began its descent nearly straight on with the floor, bathing it in light. Lewis was once again thankful that the designer of this space had the foresight to ensure his work area was in the shade, even the best transglass surface was hard to read in direct sunlight.
The chime rang and both saw that it was Parker and the new guy, Aries. Without instruction the door opened and without instruction Trillium was up and on her way out.
The office floor would be completely clear by this time, the real work proceeding down below, so the fact Trillium was prancing about in only her nearly sheer nightie would not be an issue for anyone, except maybe that errant cleaner they had.
“Fuck him,” Lewis thought, “if he can't appreciate a beautiful woman it's his problem.”
Aries came in, not in a cocky way, instead he was self-assured, curious and alert. His eyes scanned the room in chunks, filing away what he saw, not an engineer indeed thought Lewis, neither a politician either, too perceptive. This was the sort of guy you want charting ahead of you, a recon soldier looking for the traps and pitfalls. Lewis instantly liked the guy.
Parker did the recap of their status, a replay of Friday's conversation almost but Lewis wasn't paying attention, he was too intent on following Aries.
Parker stopped, distracted by Lewis' seeming lack of interest in him. “Is there a problem?”
Lewis looked at Aries as he spoke, “I'm just curious on your take, you've had the weekend to go over the stuff Parker gave you, I'm an impatient man, that's all.”
“It doesn't sound like we're going to get there any time soon”, Aries said.
Lewis' hand shot up silencing Parker who was about to comment. “Why do you suppose that is?”
Aries weighed both of them, gauging his next step, maybe he was a politician after all. “There are a lot of variables involved, we're playing around in the ether or dark matter or what have you, but we don't really know what we're looking for.”
Lewis glanced at Parker, “We've had some conflict on how to address that.”
Aries swiped his domino across the Interlink on the desktop and then stood taking over the meeting. Flitting through many files, side notes and addendum links Aries rapidly found the one he wanted.
“We need a Fluid Systems Programmer,” he stated.
“They're not exactly prevalent,” replied Parker defensively.
Lewis caught onto this, Parker wasn't disputing the need, he wanted to confirm that. “Could we use one of those?”
“A good one, yeah, but there are only a handful of people on the planet who are any good and even if they were available right now, they'd be expensive,” replied Parker.
“How expensive?” Lewis continued.
“I dunno.” Parker shrugged honestly.
“Who's the best?” said Lewis as he referenced something on his desktop.
Another shrug from Parker but Aries brought up a series of articles from various scientific journals. Articles which had not been part of the package that Parker would have given him, or even probably would have known about.
“Locally speaking Daniel Avatan for sure,” added Aries.
Lewis looked at him, “Who's the best on the planet?”.
“It's hard to say, each system requires different things but Avatan is in the top five planet-wide, he's more intuitive so probably for us, he would be the best.”
“Get him,” added Lewis with finality, “I don't care what it costs, bring him aboard.”
“We'd have to find him first,” Parker cautioned, “the guy's a known recluse!”
Aries anticipated this, already comfortable enough to show up the guy who hired him in front of his boss, or was it comfort? There was something about Aries that almost seemed to be a disregard for others. As if to say “This is what I do best, you don't like it then to hell with you.”
In a flash Aries had the detailed article on his target up on display. Something from an obscure trade magazine, something written eleven months ago.
"Says here he likes Murr beverage. Can't be that many places that sell it, I'd like to start there.” And then he stood there waiting.
“Do it,” said Lewis impressed.
Aries nodded, Parker was stunned, impressed as well. He stared at Lewis who responded simply, “a fresh set of eyes.”
Aries stopped at the door and turned back suggesting, “We should get some Murr Beverage so we can welcome him aboard.”
Lewis liked that, he liked this kid, and he felt like they were getting somewhere again. He leaned back in his chair as they left and felt a desire for Trillium. What was taking her so long?
