Icarus left to…do whatever he had next on his schedule. And hopefully to start passing the info about Puce’s origins on the nice-guy grapevine.

TamLin finished reading over the paperwork that Misha had filed for the day before, double-checked what he needed to sign and file, himself, and glanced over Kasy’s own documentation for the day. The two of them had come up with a good cover story—direct enough that nobody was lying, while leaving out inconvenient details relating to the alternate universe and other shadows involved in the situation.

Well, except for Norris, who apparently Misha and Raleigh had thought warranted being brought in to the office, and who they’d booked as an undocumented cyban. (That or Kasy had doctored the files after the fact, which was entirely plausible and could explain why she hadn’t forged his paperwork for him, again. Forging took time, and she’d had her own paperwork to fill out, too.)

TamLin sighed and hoped Puce’s current lack of physical presence would at least spare the cyban the worst of what could be inflicted on him. Was Puce even interested in the technological modifications characteristic of apex universes—which this somewhen was on-track to become on its own—or only in the biological modifications from alpha universes? TamLin wasn’t sure.

Which option would make Norris safer?

He wasn’t sure of that, either. Cybernetic enhancements were illegal in this particular part of this somewhen, but there were some pockets where they were legal or at least some kind of religious practice, so prosecution of someone for the possession of such technology was rare when it was already installed. So as long as nobody realized Norris was a shadow…

Since Puce was maneuvering to destroy TamLin, he had to assume that at least one of the office grapevines knew what Norris was. He also couldn’t afford to check on the cyban, himself, because the tack Puce was taking with what information he released suggested he was angling to spur the office to lynch TamLin. Going out of his way to visit Norris would make the cyban a target, and he probably wasn’t one already. Not yet.

TamLin considered the situation, evaluated the probabilities, and activated the privacy mode on his console to do a little online shopping.

After, of course, making sure his file package of office blueprints was prepped so he could have it installed on the console he was about to buy and have shipped to his apartment, for Second. She’d probably enjoy planning a jailbreak.