Severance by Chris Bucholz Page A

had been a close thing though — during her youth she’d
run afoul of the law more than once. But she had managed to settle down by the
time she’d finished her schooling, and landed a spot in the engineering
department. She still seemed to roll with a pretty shifty crowd, many of them
connected to the Breeder groups that were cropping up around that time. Nothing
had ever been tied directly back to her though. The author of the background
summary seemed surprised by that.
    Still, it was nothing to link Ron Gabelman directly with
anyone shady. If there was anything in Gabelman’s life to suggest he had stab–happy
enemies, it would be on his terminal. Hogg had already sent that to IT to
unlock. An easy job for them, Hogg was confident it would still probably take
them several days to get around to. But he wasn’t the type to complain, and he
still had a few other avenues, however unfruitful they appeared.
    He looked at the current unfruitful avenue blubbering in
front of him and suppressed a sigh. Time to stop badgering this poor woman.
Stowing his terminal, Hogg began the process of extricating himself from Mrs.
Gabelman’s tedious sadness, giving himself a couple of minutes before he’d stop
even pretending to be nice. He wondered if a plastic security badge would speed
the healing process any.
    §
    “Wouldn’t be the first young guy to get mixed up with drugs,”
Bruce said. “They are, after all, incredible.” He had his feet up on the desk
in the supervisor’s office while he worked on his sandwich.
    “If so, he kept it pretty quiet. I certainly never saw him
high. You?” Stein asked.
    Bruce shrugged. “I never paid a lot of attention. You know
me and people.” He munched on his sandwich for a bit. “Did the cop say who they
think did it?”
    “Nope. And I didn’t think to ask. Kind of a rough part of
the ship though. Were I to guess, I’d say he was rolled for the guru. That
seemed to be the vibe the cop was putting out.”
    They sat in silence for a few seconds. “Pretty shitty,”
Bruce finally said.
    “Pretty shitty,” Stein echoed. More silence. “It’s weird
though. I mean, I feel bad that the kid died, but I also don’t feel too bad.
You know? Like I’m almost more concerned with how this will impact my workload.
Does that sound sick?”
    “I wouldn’t worry about it. It probably just means you’re a
monster.”
    Stein snorted. “Thanks.” She poked lamely at her lunch with
a spork. “Actually, check this: Curts might be even more of a monster than me.”
Stein related Curts’ request after the security officers had left.
    Bruce chewed on a thumbnail as he listened. “Well, it sounds
like he had a little more time to react than you. And he didn’t really know the
kid, did he? I can see why he’d be more worried about the ship. Not like you,
you fucking monstrosity.”
    Stein considered that for a moment while working on her salad.
“Okay, sure. I can see a chief caring more for the ship than his staff. That’s
almost a requirement of the job. And I can see him not caring about drug users
on staff because, I kid you not, he looked like he was coming down off
something himself.”
    Bruce started chuckling to himself. She narrowed her gaze, wondering
what he was so amused about, before deciding she would probably prefer not
knowing.
    “But asking about conflicting complaints? What the hell? We
get a couple of those a day. They’re no big deal.”
    “Simple diagnosis: he’s getting anal retentive.”
    “I guess.”
    Bruce burped. “Oof. That felt good.” He shifted in his
chair. “Wanna hear what I was up to last night?”
    “Is this that thing where you watch women go to the
bathroom? Because, no, I don’t want to hear about that.”
    Bruce shook his head. “Better than that.”
    “I am at a loss to think of what you could think is better
than that. Surely something pretty foul. A violation of deep, universal
principles.”
    “Ha.” Bruce recounted the story of his