Chương 83: 33.All Accounted For 33-3

The moment the door closed, the room went quiet—briefly. Long enough for one blink. The next second, Jess threw herself backward onto her bed, clutching her stomach and laughing like she was suffocating.

"Christ," she gasped, "I can't—I genuinely cannot. What was that? Two tactical computers from competing manufacturers running live compatibility diagnostics?" I leaned against the desk, still holding Harvey's replacement liner, expression somewhere between want to curse and cursing won't help.

"Calling it diagnostics is rude."

"But accurate." Jess rolled over, buried her face in the pillow for two laughs, then looked up.

"One opens her mouth calculating failure rates, the other looks down hunting configuration gaps. You standing between them looked exactly like meat caught between two knives."

"Thanks. Very appetite-inducing imagery."

"You're welcome. I've always had literary gifts." Maki was still at the desk, re-sleeving the revised list, movements unhurried but each one annoyingly precise. She showed no interest in joining our nutritionally empty commentary, just set the clear folder at the desk corner and looked up calmly.

"Can I go to Academic Affairs first to confirm the temporary bed assignment and mixed-dorm application?" I looked at her.

"You're actually planning to live here?"

"If the transfer is confirmed, early environmental adaptation is more efficient." Jess raised her hand.

"I support this. The sooner the Upper House girl learns people here sleepwalk at 2 a. m. looking for socks, the better for team cohesion."

"No objections," I said, "but if you come back with aromatherapy dehumidifiers, antibacterial air circulators, or Upper House premium bedding sets, I'm dumping you with Linde." Maki considered for half a second.

"I don't own those things."

"Good." She stood, shouldered the pack, and gave us a precise nod.

"I'll be back within an hour."

"Take your time." I waved.

"Try not to get flattened by Lower House reality."

"If I do, I'll file a cause report," she said, and walked out with perfect composure. The door closed again. Really just the two of us now. Two seconds of silence. Then we both spoke simultaneously.

"What the hell—""What the hell—" We looked at each other.

"You first," Jess said.

"No, you."

"Fine." Jess sat up, legs folded, face serious as someone convening a Lower House underground tribunal.

"First: Maki Kushima has a problem."

"Agreed."

"Not regular problems. Premium problems."

"Strongly agreed."

"I thought she'd be the type to write three-thousand-word Lower House Observation Journals to submit back to the Upper House. Instead she came down with planning sheets to argue supply configurations with us." I tossed the replacement liner onto my bed, pulled a chair over, straddled it with arms across the back, staring at where she'd been sitting.

"She's not down here performing." The words came out, and I paused. Because I don't usually like making calls this fast. Especially not for someone from the Upper House. But there it was, laid out right in front of me. You can fake it for five minutes, easy. Faking it all the way through Harvey walking in, flipping your sheets on the spot, catching errors, arguing fixes, setting time constraints—and not flinching once—that takes more than a thick skin. Jess had clearly followed the same line of thought.

She nodded slowly.

"Yeah. She doesn't look serious. She is serious. Not about 'how do I join you,' but 'once I join, which holes do I patch.'""And she thought it through in detail." I frowned.

"Detailed enough to piss people off."

"Are you pissed at the detail, or pissed that the detail makes sense?"

"…Both." Jess laughed under her breath.

"Honestly? The part that creeped me out most was her and Harvey talking."

"Which part?"

"All of it." She didn't hesitate.

"You don't think that's scary? Normal people meeting for the first time, there's at least a little friction. Those two skipped getting acquainted and went straight to running each other's diagnostics." I went quiet for a moment. Because that was too accurate, and I didn't want to admit it. I've spent enough time around Harvey to have his settings more or less mapped. Mouth like a weapon, eyes always looking for the failure point—gear or people.

He's not the welcoming type, or the easily-placated type, and he definitely isn't one of those idiots who sees a pretty white uniform and automatically goes easy. With him, it's the same every time: suspect first, test second, decide if you belong in the marginally usable category later. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. And Maki Kushima had just gotten a works on the first pass. Two syllables. But it was Harvey.

The guy usually makes "Still alive, not bad" sound like he's handing you a condolence payment. I clicked my tongue and leaned back in the chair.

"That part is what I hate most."

"You mean Harvey actually recognizing her?"

"That's not what I meant." The denial came out on reflex. Jess raised an eyebrow.

"Oh? Then what did you mean?"

"I mean—" I hesitated, then dug up something that didn't sound completely pathetic.

"Harvey doesn't waste time on things that don't have substance." Jess looked at me with a deeply uncharitable smile.

"So you're complimenting her on having substance."

"I'm conducting a risk assessment."

"You've picked up bad habits from Harvey."

"Shut up." I tipped my head back and stared at the ugly water stain on the ceiling. If I was being honest, what hit me most just now wasn't oh no, an Upper House girl. It was— The room had suddenly acquired something very similar to Harvey, and at the same time, nothing like him at all. What's Harvey like? Like that wrench in the toolkit you hate at first—too heavy, ugly, and he keeps using it to whack you on the head. But when something actually comes loose, breaks, or falls apart, he's the one you go looking for.

Maki Kushima is more like a measuring stick. Hard, cold, annoyingly straight. Just sitting there, it makes fun of how sloppily you've been living. And yet—once you measure, you find out she's dead on. That's the irritating part.

"And there's something else off about her," I said. Jess immediately sat up a little straighter.

"What?"

"She's not here to be liked." I'd felt that from the start. If she were the clever-princess type, she could put on a much nicer act. Soften her voice, lean into sorry to bother you, please take care of me, make it harder for Lower House trash like us to go full hostile on reflex. She didn't. She came in with data. Said straight out she'd investigated us. Stated exactly where our gaps were. Stated exactly that she was here to fill them. That kind of speech pattern is a great way to get hated fast.

Unless—she doesn't give a shit whether you like her first. She only cares whether you're convinced she's useful. Jess took that in, then gave a slow, thoughtful "mm."

"Yeah. I was thinking the same thing." She hugged her knees, chin on them, for once actually serious.

"She's not here to make friends."

"Right."

"She's here to get on the roster."

"Right."

"And she knows that talking friendship at you doesn't work, and throwing status at Harvey works even less. So she goes straight for usefulness with both of you." I turned to look at her.

"You're unusually sharp today."

"Because those two almost scared me awake." Jess rolled her eyes.

"Come on—an Upper House woman standing in our dorm with your supply sheet in hand, discussing replacement fastener counts with Harvey? That image is so absurd I might never see anything like it again in my life." I couldn't help a laugh.

"Fair." The laugh died down, and I went quiet again. Because from here, the next step meant touching a part I really didn't feel like spelling out. Jess clearly knew. She didn't push, just sat there and waited. I clicked my tongue and, in the end, said it anyway.

"Harvey was…different today too."

"Oh?" Her eyes lit up.

"Go on."

"This is not a romance subplot, wipe that face off." I shut that down first, then continued.

"His usual reaction to anything new is to tear it apart first, talk later. That wasn't what he did today." Jess nodded.

"Today he dismantled first, evaluated, then decided how to find fault."

"…That somehow sounds worse."

"But you see my point." I did. That was exactly the problem. When Harvey walked in and saw Maki, of course his first reaction was suspicion. That's baseline. But what followed wasn't Upper House? Get out, and it wasn't the reflexive what the fuck would you know either. He went straight into work mode. Check the sheet, find errors, test the person, drop standards. What does that mean? It means that somewhere in his head, he'd already filed Maki under potential actual member of Group 144.

Not friend, not classmate, not pretty complication. A possible slot in the team. That's a lot more dangerous than politeness. Because it means even Harvey has acknowledged she's not here on a field trip. I scrubbed a hand through my hair, my tone sour.

"Bottom line, I hate this feeling."

"What feeling?"

"The one where—" I frowned, searching for the word.

"I'd already prepped to treat her like airborne trash. Then she sits down, cuts three cans from my cola, and Harvey can't find any major faults to rip into. That makes it hard to maintain full, righteous rejection." Jess burst out laughing.

"That's brutally honest."

"It's not honesty, it's a situation report."

"Translated: you're not as eager to kick her out as you were."

"I didn't say that."

"But you thought it."

"No."

"Yes."

"Jess."

"Okay, okay." She raised her hands, still fighting a grin.

"Let me rephrase. You're not approving of her. You're just…temporarily out of solid reasons to hate her." I was quiet for two seconds. Then, reluctantly:"…That phrasing works." Jess slapped her thigh.

"Knew it."

"Don't get cocky." I glared.

"And it's temporary. She did fine today, doesn't mean she'll stay sharp three days into a rainforest. Strong on paper doesn't mean she won't drag us down in the field."

"Right, right." Jess nodded in that lazy, noncommittal way.

"Defensive reservation clause. Got it." I ignored her and looked down at the revised planning sheet on the desk. Nine cans of cherry cola. One light novel. Medical kit split in two tiers. Replacement fasteners up to six sets. Night watch roles defined. Decisions not allowed to be made by who yells loudest. …That last line was still bullshit. Which was exactly why it was going to stick. Something occurred to me, and I looked up at Jess.

"You notice how similar she and Harvey are?"

"Oh, absolutely." Jess answered instantly.

"Similar in all the worst ways."

"Details."

"Harvey's the guy who calls you an idiot while he's repacking your bag properly. Maki Kushima can't be bothered to call you an idiot; she just converts your stupidity directly into a spreadsheet." She paused, then added the finishing cut, "His mouth is sandpaper. Her brain is a straightedge. You standing between them looked about ready to ascend." I thought about it. Yeah. Pretty much. And the worst part is, what they have in common isn't just brains or being annoying.

It's that neither of them accepts close enough as an answer. In this school, people like that are exhausting. On that planet with the firestorms, people like that might actually keep us alive. I reached for the half-murdered cola on the desk and took a swig. Sweet as hell, artificial as sin, but somehow it cleared my head.

"Anyway," I said, setting the can down with a light clack, "we watch first." Jess raised an eyebrow.

"That cautious?"

"What else do you want?" I folded my arms, eyes on the door.

"File an official statement now? The undersigned hereby acknowledges that the Upper House precision-model princess plus the tool bastard in the same squad present a significant survival advantage? I'm not insane."

"Oh, so it's not that you don't acknowledge it. You just refuse to put it in writing."

"You are extremely talkative today."

"Because this is fun." She hopped off the bed, came over to the desk, and poked the planning sheet.

"But seriously," she said, voice softening a notch, "did you have even half a second back there where it felt like… maybe this isn't quite as bad as you thought?" I looked at the sheet and didn't answer right away. The light outside had gone full morning, slanting into this wreck of a room and lighting up the papers, tape, liner, cola can, and the supply list that had just been restructured beyond recognition. On paper, I should have been furious. In reality, I was furious. But—"… A little." I said it quietly.

Quiet enough to sound like a confession I wasn't supposed to make. Jess still heard it, and her face did that caught-you thing.

"Oho."

"One more oho and you can bunk with Maki."

"Not a bad deal. I get to observe a premium-grade patient at close range."

"Then go ahead." I stood, took the sheet, read it through one more time, then—very unwillingly—folded it and slid it into my own notebook folder. The act itself already said more than I liked. Because if I really thought it was trash, I wouldn't be keeping it. Jess watched me, smiling like the smug little bastard she was.

"So, verdict?" I dropped the folder on the desk with a light smack and lifted my chin, tone as bad as ever.

"Verdict is—" I paused.

"Right now, Maki Kushima doesn't look useless. Harvey wasn't blind today either. Both of them are a pain in the ass, but they're useful pains in the ass." Jess started clapping.

"That's the highest certification Group 144 offers."

"That's not a certification."

"What is it, then?" I thought about it, and finally forced out:"A temporary decision not to throw them out of the team." Jess doubled over, bracing herself on the desk. I drained the rest of the cola in one go, and, very grudgingly, admitted something to myself— Fuck. Three days from now, that live-deployment drill might end up looking just a little less like a scheduled group suicide than I thought.