She was tapping at her pad and didn't look up. "Will you stop being a child for once?"
He spoke in a pouty voice. "Someone rolled off the wrong side of the bed this morning and fell in a bucket of sourpuss."
Simona made no reply.
"How did you know I was going to be at the parking tubes?" Lem asked. "I know you haven't been waiting there all morning. I wasn't scheduled to be here at all."
"Do you really have to ask?"
"I have a hunch, but I'd like to hear it from you."
She looked up at him. "Next time you steal a proximity chip, be a little more discreet about how you use it. And try an erasing program so no one can backtrack all your movements and know where you are at all times."
"If you've been able to track me why did you call my apartment and the warehouse last night? You would have known I wasn't there."
"Because I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to keep the proximity chip after such flagrant abuse of it. I thought you would have dumped it or traded it. We picked up the signal south of town, but I didn't think it was you. Why would you go down there? I was giving you the benefit of the doubt. Silly me."
"Well don't I feel like the village idiot." He was quiet a moment. "So you know where I went last night? You have an address?"
"Who you spend your recreational time with is your business, Lem. I've already erased the address from the memory banks. Believe me, I'm not particularly eager to find out whoever it was who gave you an STD last night."
"You're really annoyed about this, aren't you?"
"Damn right I am. I couldn't get you when I needed you."
The bite in her tone angered him. "Well I'm sorry if I'm not at your every beck and call, Simona. But if you turn back the dials of your memory just a hair, you'll recall that I asked for your help to stop my father and this drone attack, and you didn't exactly spring to my side."
Her voice was calm, but there was steel behind it. "Let's not point fingers, Lem. What's done is done. My loyalty is with your father. I've been clear on that. He pays my salary."
"Are you really that cheap, Simona? Is that all that matters to you? A paycheck? Well, let's hope the Formics don't make you a better offer."
He regretted saying it as soon as the words came out, and he could see that they had stung. She stared at him, jaw set, then turned away, shaking her head.
He should apologize.
There was a line, and he had crossed it.
She tapped at her ho
lopad, her head bowed, her long hair obscuring her face from him.
He was on the verge of apologizing when he recalled that she had kept information from him. He wasn't the bad guy here. He had needed critical information about the drone launch dates, and she had knowingly kept him in the dark. Where were the apologies she owed him, huh?
And ever since he had come back from the Kuiper Belt, she had snapped at him and ordered him around like a dog, like some mindless mutt. Go here, Lem. Say this, Lem. Don't say that, Lem. Follow me, Lem. Smile for the cameras, Lem. Double time, hurry up. Snap, snap.
She was Father's puppet, and he had been hers, jumping from one PR interview to the next, playing his part like the trick dog he was.
And Simona, always in her laughably long, modest skirts and high necklines and self-righteous holier-than-thou attitude. It was so infuriating, so condescending, so--
Simona sniffed.
He looked at her. She rotated farther away from him, hiding her face.
Was she ... crying?
Suddenly he felt guilty. He had never seen her exude any emotion other than impatience and annoyance.
He should say something.