Free Ill Wind by Rachel Caine Page A

eats his own children, I swear.”
    â€œHe damn sure eats his Staff’s children. And his Staff.” I checked my watch, which told me I had five minutes to launch. “Better get in there. Later?”
    â€œLater,” she confirmed. “Cuban sandwiches for lunch. There’s a great place about six blocks down. Be there.”
    I waved and was buzzed through the door into a high-tech wilderness of cubicles, glass conference rooms, arrays of computers blinking in machine dreams. Two or three of the analysts and meteorologists looked up and watched me pass, but nobody spoke. I knew where I was going, and so did they.
    Situation Room B is, technically, a secondary crisis center, but it’s rarely in use; the Wardens use it for an informal office most of the time. I’d been in it five or six times already, so I knew what to expect when I opened the door.
    Except that there was someone else already there.
    Bad Bob Biringanine stared out at the cloudless blue sky, his feet up, drinking a glass of water withbubbles. I hadn’t seen him in the flesh since my nearly disastrous intake meeting, and I felt myself turn small and weak at the sight of him. Especially when those laser-sharp blue eyes considered and then dismissed me.
    â€œBaldwin, right?” he asked. He had a light tenor voice, neutral with indifference.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œJust here to observe,” he said. Observe. Like that wasn’t worse than any trouble I might have been in already. Having Bad Bob staring over your shoulder was bound to make even the best Warden nervous, and I wasn’t quite arrogant enough to consider myself the best. Yet.
    I sucked it up and sat down to review the file: maps of pressure systems, satellite photos fresh off the printer of the growing circular mass of Tropical Storm Samuel, still lashing empty ocean beyond Bermuda. My opposite number was waiting in a seaport town in Mauritania named Nouakchott; the phone was preprogrammed for speed dial to reach her. Voices don’t carry so well in Oversight. Landlines are always a plus for long-distance work.
    â€œYou getting on with it while I’m still young?” Bad Bob asked. He hadn’t moved from his kicked-back spot, was still staring at the view. Funny how I think of it as a view, even though both of us were looking at a clear blue sky, not even any clouds in sight; we were drawn to the boundless and limitless possibilities. When I swallowed, I felt my throat click. There was a carafe of water on the table, sweating diamond drops, but I didn’t feel like showing him that my hands were shaking. I wiped palms against blue jeans.
    â€œSure,” I said. “No problem.”
    I speed-dialed. Tamara Motumbo picked up on the second ring, and we exchanged some nervous pleasantries, through which Bad Bob drummed fingernails against the table. I hurried along to Step One, which was confirmation of the scope of our work. It’s always good to go into a powerful situation with a clear expectation of what you’re supposed to walk out with.
    We decided we wanted to disrupt Samuel enough to make it just another squall; no point in trying to wipe out the storm altogether, since it would only move the energy someplace else that might spawn something just as bad. I made notes as I went, and my writing was shaky. Nothing like knowing every move you make is on the record.
    â€œReady?” I asked Tamara. She said she was, though I’d lay money that neither of us was really sure.
    I sucked in a deep breath, let go, and floated out of my body and into Oversight. The room turned gray and misty, but Bad Bob was like a brilliant neon sign, lit up with so much power, it was hard to look at him directly. Red tinged. I wondered if he was sick, but I wasn’t about to ask after his health, not now. I turned away from him, oriented myself with the vast voiding power of the sea, and let the waves of its energy carry me up and out,