Kinsmen 01 - Silver Shark

the feel of his hands on her, the way he said her name, the way he felt inside her.
    The Intelligence had transferred him across the city. They had no warning. One day he was simply gone. It didn't take her long to put it together: she was a rising star and he was perceived as a distraction. He didn't try to look for her. He didn't put up a fight. Since then, she'd kept her sexual impulses under lock and key. Masturbation brought her the same relief, and while it came with no intimacy, it didn't carry a burden of disappointment either. In her last weeks on Uley she hadn't even felt the need for it.
    She looked at Venturo Escana on the screen. It was as if some vital part of her, the one that was female and craved male contact, sex, and love, had withered. Somehow this man managed to resuscitate it without doing anything at all. And he felt nothing except pity for her. The irony made her laugh.
    She would see him again on Monday. She had to make sure to not make a fool of herself.
    *** *** ***

    Her supervisor was a woman three years her junior. Her name was Renata, her hair was dark brown, her nails bright yellow, and when she was surprised, she opened her brown eyes so wide, she looked slightly deranged.
    "How did you get through these so fast?"
    "I'm motivated." Claire smiled.
    Renata scrolled through the bionet activity reports with rows of tabled data. "Hang on, I have to find something to gripe about." She kept scrolling. "Oh. Here, look, the Radon sector heading should be in blue and you have it in grey." Her fingers flew over her keyboard. "Fix, fix, fix! Fixed."
    Claire studied Renata out of the corner of her eye. Her mannerisms were so... carefree. Not exactly childlike but completely devoid of the somber poise common to Uley. If you had dropped Renata, the big smile, wide eyes, and purple dress in the middle of an Uley's skyscraper, people would pretend she wasn't there. They'd just refuse to see her. Maybe some well-meaning soul would walk up to her and confidentially inform her that her hair was too bright and she was making a fool of herself...
    A mental tug interrupted Claire's musings. Venturo Escana, approaching fast. A walking mental firestorm of a mind behind an invisible wall of a steel will.
    "All set." Renata raised her hands from the keys. "Did you review the Sangori file?"
    "Yes." Venturo's mind was coming closer.
    "And the recommendations?
    "Yes."
    "Good! Be ready to spit it all back at Ven when he comes by. He has a meeting with them later this afternoon and he prefers the spoken summary. But don't worry, he knows most of the file already. He just needs a refresher course."
    He had a heightened auditory focus - his mind processed sound better than visual cues. Although for most people the theory of learning styles had long been debunked, for psychers it remained true: some were visual learners, some listened, and others had to write every scrap of information down. She'd worked with auditory psychers like that before. There was a trick to it - the combination of the correct intonation, vocabulary, and the information presented in a logical manner.
    Renata's eyes widened. "Speak of the devil."
    Venturo had turned the corner. Claire braced herself and turned to look, slowly.
    The amicable man she saw yesterday was gone. He wore a black shirt that clung to him like paint, focusing attention on every contoured muscle. A fine mesh of hair-thin fibers snaked its way through the fabric, widening into oblong scales on his chest and the larger muscles of his shoulders. He looked as if he wore armor, if armor could be flexible and formfitting. His eyes were dark, and his mind churned - something occupied his attention. He moved with a purpose, striding straight down the hallway with a kind of fierce masculine determination. People moved out of his way.
    "What is he wearing?" Claire murmured.
    "A bionet suit. When psychers log into the net, their bodies don't move at all. A human body isn't designed to be completely immobile unless it floats," Renata said. "The suits start pulsing after a while, exercising the muscles and making sure lymph keeps moving."
    A bionet suit. Claire recalled waking up cramped up after hours in bionet and wincing as the medic massaged her limbs back into life.
    "Someone's smitten," Renata said.
    Claire glanced at her. "Is it that obvious?"
    "Yes. Very." Renata paused. "Claire, you do know what psychers do, don't you?"
    She needed to give a general answer. "Provide