You Should Say What You Mean
The good news is, Noelle's going to recover. She still looks like hell, but at least she's coherent again. It's a start. She's well enough for bunny pajamas, and she asked me to come see her. In the bastard's quarters. She somehow managed to get the fucker to allow her cat into his quarters. Interesting.
The conversation we had was interesting. At first, she was just looking for me to fill in the blanks for her, tell her what had happened while she'd been drugged out of her mind. However, as I told her what I knew, she started to fill in some blanks for me, give me some leads and suspicions to follow up on. It seemed too much of a coincidence that Francis Wilson happened to be the name of someone way up her family tree who'd served in the 18th century United States Revolutionary War on earth; so when she mentioned dreaming about her brother Randy, the gears started turning in my head.
It didn't take me long to hunt down Sharad. Cocky jerk was sitting in the mess, reading something horribly written and horribly trashy. Shouldn't have surprised me, one of the guys I fucked while serving with Delta Force read that sort of shit too. I think he was a spook, but he couldn't or wouldn't admit it, he certainly had a similar personality though. Both of them would drop whatever they're doing if I demanded they join me in my quarters, no matter my tone of voice and no questions asked. I sure as hell wasn't giving Sharad my 'fuck me, hot stuff' voice, yet there he was, a minute earlier than I told him to be.
He was painfully vague, and frustratingly spook-like. This was to be expected, I suppose. Something about the way these people get rewired when they're broken for Intel use just hard wires that instinct into them. When I showed a little trust, admitting to the bugs in my quarters being turned off... (though I didn't admit who did it) he actually had the gall to ask me to turn them back on. Not sure if he was cracking a joke, or what, but after pointing out that I could have him and whoever he works for strung up for it, legally speaking, then driving the point home with a Ben Franklin quote, he went back into his double speak. So I shut him down, blew him off, and told him I just realized I was late for dinner with Enzo. As he left, I made it plainly clear that he would regret it if he betrayed the trust I showed in him by admitting the bugs in my quarters were disabled, and his response made it clear he didn't disagree with my view on them. I'm pretty sure he won't cause me trouble.
I didn't get much information out of the conversation, the double speak was too hard to sort through, but I am pretty sure that Francis Wilson is Randall Connor. Sharad all but confirmed it for me. I might feed this information to Spiegel, and see if he can confirm it for me, but it makes too much sense to not be true at this point. Between what he said when we went to collect Noelle, what Noelle said when I was talking to her, then how Sharad took my question about using Noelle as bait to collect her brother, there is very little room for doubt.
Enzo was pleasantly surprised when I called him up after Sharad left my quarters, and sprung surprise dinner plans on him. I think he was expecting me to desert him for Tom for some reason. I don't get that. Sure, I've been spending a lot of time with Tom lately, but he's a new fling, and oddly enough, there are things about that man which I can relate to. Things I hadn't found in anyone else before. It makes him easier to talk to in some ways. Doesn't mean Enzo interests me any less though. I'll have to remember to be more mindful of my time distribution between my gentleman friends.