Reads Yamata

I still wasn't sure what to make of Jessica Yamada. She was a well dressed Asian American woman, but it didn't look like she was dressing to intimidate or to make me trust her more. It was a neutral outfit, probably chosen specifically because it was neutral. The lack of message was a message in and of itself. It meant that she knew how I'd be judging her, and that she'd taken that into account. She'd worked with other thinkers before.

 

***

 

“I suppose,” I said. “That seems like an unlikely example.”

 

“It's not,” she said soberly.

 

She didn't say anything else about it, but her body language spoke for itself. She tried to control it, but there were some sudden and not so subtle cues. There was a tension in her shoulders and a certain set to her lips.

 

“Even an attempt can lead to retaliation,” she said.

 

Hadn't she been working with Protectorate members in Alaska after a Slaughterhouse incident? Maybe she was serious about having dealt with that situation, at least vicariously.

 

***

 

“Why would they bench me then?” I asked. “Why...”

 

I stared at her, my mind racing as I started putting things together.

 

“Politics?”

 

She looked impressed.

 

“You got all of that from my body language?”

 

“You seemed sure that my conclusion now was wrong, so I evaluated things I'd seen in a new light. But why would politics... oh.”

 

Some departments had more prestige than others. The ones with the Triumvirate got the best people. They got the best the Youth Guard had to offer, and presumably they got the best PRT agents. They likely got better funding too, not just because they were in bigger cities, but due to prestige. Did that mean that they stole talent from each other like football teams?

 

“Do you think that more than a year of repeatedly being told you were worthless has had an impact on the conclusions you make?”

 

“I thought I was past all that,” I said. I stared out the window, which was already dark and had a beautiful view of Brockton Bay. The city looked like a sea of stars spread out across the horizon. “But maybe that was just what I wanted to think.”

 

***

 

Withdraw