Ain't Talkin'

The Res outpost saloon was little more than a converted barracks with the cots removed. Though it now served a more permanent and necessary service than sleep and housing.

The barkeep was an off-duty soldier with tight hair and a thick jaw who was amiable enough, but quiet. Roche and Miner sat in a far corner with an oil lamp between them and a bottle of brown whiskey between them.

“The doctor. who is he?” Roche asked after his third glass, a cigarette hanging cold from his lips.

“Weaving. Yes. I apologize for him. He is. . .an unsettling necessity in this. He came to use so recently, and with the coming of the thirteenth we dare not turn him away. His methods had not been disclosed to me until just today, outside that station before you hit him. I was under the impression he was a mere researcher, though a highly educated one, with some manner of understanding regarding the Ethercorp’s current project.”

“Where is he now?” Roche asked.

“I’ve asked to have him quarantined to his office for the nonce, until I can decide what to do. I am as shocked as you-”

“Doubt it.”

“Yes. No. I suppose not. I don’t know who or what he’s done that involves you and your past, Mr. Roche, and I don’t care to. What’s your business is your business.”

“But it got me here, helping. I can’t help but wonder if you’re so innocent in this if you just got me here to do whatever it is you need?”

“Of course not!” Miner seemed genuinely offended. “I would never endanger the life of a child knowingly for the purpose of any cause. That’s detestable.”

“Suppose so. But, you’re a man I’ve met twice now, Miner. I believed you honest the first time when you told me you were that kid’s father. Wasn’t so true.”

“Perhaps not. I had intended to play on your sympathies, though I did not know you were a shrewd enough man that such things would not matter.”

“I can see that. All it proves to me is that I can’t read you as well as I’d thought.” Roche downed three fingers in a swallow.

“Then you don’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone, least of all that Doctor Weaving.”

“You don’t have to trust him Roche, but just know that I’m going to do everything I can to help you find that little girl for whatever she is to you. If you help us avert a second catastrophe, that’s the very least that I owe you.”

“Yep.” Roche swallowed another drink.