Convergence - The Last Science #2.2 - Heroes and Villains

B2: Chapter 31 - Across the Pond - IV

  "It's okay," said Hailey. "I... well, I felt pretty close to your daughter. I was her student for four years, and I fought alongside her in May." I felt her essence, too, when we did the ritual. Never known anything like it... Even if it was faint.

  "She fought?" asked Thomas sharply.

  "...Kinda." Hailey shrugged. "She was never injured. Shook up a bit, but she made it out just fine."

  "Oh, thank goodness," said Mary, letting out a breath.

  "They were a lot of help though," Hailey went on. "We would have lost some really good people without Kendra's market." Hailey paused, thinking back a moment. "I'm sorry, I just... tell me if this is too personal, but you said Kendra wasn't interested in men?"

  Mary rolled her eyes. "Yes, and if I'd've known sooner, she probably wouldn't hate me so much. I sent so many potential suitors to meet her."

  "So she's—"

  "Asexual," said Mary, "as I understand it."

  "She explained to us, in no uncertain terms, that she held no interest in a courtship and to kindly stop trying to find her a partner, as she was quite content on her own," said Thomas, smiling slightly. "I've never heard such a polite request to bugger off in my life."

  "Thomas!"

  Hailey smiled. "That's the most Kendra thing I've ever heard."

  "It took us a while to comprehend what she meant, but I believe we got there in the end." Thomas' expression darkened. "If only I'd been so understanding with her professional life..."

  "She's alive, dear," Mary reminded him. "Hailey's seen her."

  "Spoken to her, too," added Hailey. And her parents seem like such good people. They don't deserve this, no matter what went down in the past. "I can get a message to her."

  "You can?" asked Thomas, hope blooming on his face like the sun had just come out from behind the heavy clouds hanging over London.

  Hailey nodded. "I won't tell you where she is, because that's her choice—"

  "Of course," Thomas interrupted quickly. "I wouldn't dream of it."

  "But... yeah. Whatever you want to say, I'll make sure she hears it when I can."

  Thomas looked like he might actually leap up and hug her. He didn't, of course, but for a man of his standing and stature, Hailey knew it was a huge gesture. She liked them—both of them, really—and she didn't really want to treat them like the rest of the cold and cutthroat business world she'd grown up around, or the harsh distrusting world she'd come to know.

  "It's the software," Hailey added, cleaning her face with the softest cloth napkin she'd ever felt. "The way Malton's getting into your company."

  "...Pardon me?" asked Thomas.

  Hailey stood up. "I still want your help, whenever I find him, and I'll bring you everything I can get. But you should probably cut him off while you can." She stretched out her shoulders, flaring her wings a bit as well. Even if they didn't really exist, for whatever reason stretching them felt just as satisfying. The sudden wind current fluttered the curtains behind her. "Your company uses some kind of software from a Japanese company, right? Nishimura, I think?"

  "Yes. We acquired them about nine years ago." Thomas frowned. "There's no way Kazuo would do this. I know that man. It's simply not in his character."