The tutoring session finished and his students dispersing to their own modules, Lou considered whether it was time to head back to his own apartment. Or at least back to that module, although its lounge wasn’t nearly as nice as this one.
But as he was putting away his materials, he noticed Brenda Redmond sitting at the far wall, looking very much as if she were stewing over something. Should he ask her if there were something wrong? Or would that be an intrusion?
They were colleagues, both DJ’s at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. And they did have lineage ties: although Brenda had married into the Shepard lineage, she’d been born into the Grissom lineage. So he did have certain responsibilities.
Make it light then. Leave the door open, as it were. “Hi, Brenda. Just wondered if you needed anything before I took off.”
Brenda pursed her lips, as if ready to form a polite no, thank you. “Well, I was just thinking about some technical issues in telecommunications.” She paused, moistened her lips. “A few days ago, I got an e-mail from an old friend, from before the anti-Sharp stuff started really revving up. She’d apparently had some kind of breach with her parents, and when all the dorms closed at her college, she was really upset about having to go back to them. And then, with all the stuff with Kitty Margrave’s friend and everything we found out about that, it just slipped my mind.”
Yes, she definitely felt bad about that one. Not exactly guilty, but more than just sheepish at a mental lapse.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Brenda. This is not exactly a normal situation, and I’m hearing a lot of people are having to struggle to keep track of ordinary things.”
She essayed a wan smile. “Thanks, Lou. If these were normal times, I’d just write and let her know that things came up and I hadn’t gotten a chance to get back with her. But right now I’m not even sure if it’s safe for me to try to contact her.” Another of those awkward pauses. “I mean, her parents are so dead-set against clones that they made her dump me as a friend, just because my dad’s a clone of Gus Grissom. It was like they wanted her to forget I even existed after we headed off to training to come up here.”
Lou’s nerves prickled with alarm. “Then you think she could be in danger?”
“I don’t know. Maybe, depending on just what kind of breach she had with her parents. For all I know, she may be holed up in an apartment with a friend. But if she’s had to go back to her folks’ house and the price of peace there is that she pretend to agree with whatever position of theirs led to the breach, and especially if they’re insisting that they now have the right to monitor her telecom, just texting or e-mailing her could risk an ugly blow-up.”
Lou considered that information. “That is a nasty Schroedinger’s box. Do you leave it closed and hope for the best, or open it and risk making a bad situation even worse?”
“That’s a pretty good way to put it. Except if I don’t reach out to her and she really is in a desperate situation, might her feelings of abandonment and hopelessness lead her to do something rash?”
Lou could tell what Brenda was thinking but didn’t want to say aloud: suicide. It was a taboo topic for a reason, especially after Clarissa Munroe’s spectacular act of self-destruction. There were very good reasons to condemn that particular young woman to damnato memoria, but it meant it became very difficult to talk in a constructive way about someone else under unendurable pressure without looking like you were excusing what she did.
“Which means you need to figure out some way to find out where this person is without potentially letting other people in the same household know that you’re making inquiries about her.”
“That’s pretty much the size of it.” Brenda paused again to consider her words. “I mean, I know there are techniques, especially after I watched Eli dig out information on the crazy stuff that’s going on in several states’ child welfare departments. But those are techniques you’re only supposed to use if you’re acting in an official capacity. And somehow I don’t think this is the sort of thing that’s going to get taken seriously. I mean, that creepy I’m OK message that was supposed to be from Amy is going to set off just about anybody’s alarm bells, but someone unhappy to have to go home to their parents is far more apt to be told to make the best of it.”
“You’ve got a point.” Lou weighed the options. “I can ask around at IT, see what options I would have to legitimately find out where she is.”
“Thanks.”