Glasshouse - Charles Stross [143]
“I . . . see.” Janis looks as if she’s sucking on a slice of lemon. Right then the kettle comes to a boil, so she stands up and pours the hot water into two mugs, then scoops in the creamy powder and mixes it up. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, Reeve, but you seem to have changed since you came out of hospital. You haven’t really been yourself.”
“Hmm? What do you mean?” I blow on my coffee to cool it.
“Oh, little things.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “You’ve gained a certain enthusiasm. You’re more interested in exteriors than interiors. And you seem to have lost your sense of humor.”
“What’s humor got to do with it?” I glare at my mug, willing myself not to get angry. “I know who I am, I know who I was.”
“Forget I said it.” Janis sighs. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m getting really bitchy these days.” She falls silent for a while. “I hope you don’t mind my leaving you for a few hours.”
I manage a forced laugh. Janis’s issues aren’t my business, strictly speaking, but—“What are friends for?”
She looks at me oddly. “Thanks.” She takes a mouthful of her coffee and makes a face. “This stuff is vile, the only thing worse that I can think of is not having it at all.” Her frown lengthens. “I’m running late. See you back around lunchtime?”
“Sure,” I say, and she stands up, grabs her jacket from the back of the door, and heads off.
I finish my coffee, then go back to the front desk. There’s some filing to do, but the cleaning zombies have been thorough—they didn’t even leave me any dusty top shelves to polish. A couple of bored office workers drop in to return books or browse the shelves for some lunchtime entertainment, but apart from that the place is dead. So it happens that I’m sitting at the front desk, puzzling over whether there’s a better way to organize the overdue returns shelf, when the front door opens, and Fiore steps in.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he says, pudgy eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Really?” I hop off my stool and smile at him, even though all my instincts are screaming at me to be careful.
“Indeed not.” He sniffs. “Is the other librarian, Janis, in?”
“She’s out this morning, but she’ll be back later.” I get a horrible sense of déjà vu as I look at him, like a flashback to a bad dream.
“Hmm. Well, if I can trouble you to turn your back, I have business in the repository.” His voice rises: “I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Ah, all right.” I take an involuntary step back. There’s something about Fiore, something not quite right, a feral tension in his eyes, and I’m suddenly acutely aware that we’re alone, and that he outweighs me two to one. “Will you be long?”
His eyes flicker past my shoulder. “No, this won’t take long, Reeve.” Then he turns and lumbers toward the reference section and the secure document repository, not bothering to look at me. For a moment I don’t believe my own instincts. It’s a gesture of contempt worthy of Fiore, after all, a man so wrapped up in himself that if you spent too long with him, you’d end up thinking you were a figment of his imagination. But then I hear him snort. There’s the squeak of the key in the lock, and a creak of floorboards. “You might as well come with me. We can talk inside.”
I hurry after him. “In what capacity am I talking to you?” I ask, desperately racking my brains for an excuse not to join him. “Is it about Janis?”
He turns and fixes me with a beady stare. “It might be, my daughter.” And that’s pure Fiore. So I follow him through the door and down the steps into the cellar, a hopeless tension gnawing at my guts, still unsure whether I’m right to be worried or not.
Fiore pauses when we get to the strange room at the bottom of the stairs. “What exactly do you think of Dr. Hanta?” he asks me. He sounds tired, weighed down with cares.
I’m taken aback. What is this, some kind of internal politicking? “She’s”—I pause,