Chapter Text
Over the next few days, the hazy nowhere Valerie had been drifting through grew much less medicated, and the visit that had once felt undeniably real to her drugged-up mind now started to resemble a mocking trick of her imagination. Starved for entertainment her bedridden and blind body couldn't provide, her brain subsisted on a diet of feverish dreams. Having nearly convinced herself it had been one of those, she heard the familiar footsteps in her ward once again.
This time, finally lucid enough, the sergeant managed to recount all the small details she had uncovered about Peralez, Mr. Blue Eyes and her own conjectures regarding Night Corp. The existence of powerful players backing her challenger hardly unsettled the president. The scope and means of their influence certainly did. Myers listened in attuned silence, interrupted only by precise questions asked in a hushed voice, then curtly squeezed her hand—Valerie had been already aware it was the only one she had left now—and quickly walked out. A third visit would never come.
In the absence of a more meaningful calendar, Sergeant Linder restarted her timeline from the renewed sense of loss that tugged at her chest when the woman left. The mention that yesterday had been her own birthday provided her with a precise date. Time had dulled most things, yet seemed powerless against this fixation. As if four years ago, an FIA neurosurgeon stumbled upon that still sore node of conflicting emotions that Myers had left in her brain and mistakenly fused it into her neural system as its permanent part. The hospital provided no medication for that, but in every other aspect she was steadily getting better.
Only a week later, her body was disconnected from the medtech, transferred to a regular single ward, and assisted in removing the bandage from its newborn eyes. Ignoring strict orders to avoid strain, she turned on the wall-mounted TV the moment she was left unsupervised, her tender optic nerves flaring even at the dimmest light. Glued to the bright screen, the marine spent hours squinting and wiping away tears of discomfort her itchy kiroshis had no use for. She wasn't sentimental enough to shed real tears, but still, it was a relief to see that the woman was fine. Thriving, even.
The pundits, blurred into shifting patches of color, occasionally praised the incumbent president's campaign, revitalized by Myers' reportedly ad-libbed speech at some veterans' venue a few weeks prior. Apparently, it had become an instant classic that 'reminded the nation of the Rosalind Myers of 2065,' whatever that meant. However, this week's top story was Peralez' own daughter stepping forward with shocking accusations about her father's complicity in her mother's death.
Though no hard evidence had yet been presented, the claim and the claimant left a dent of suspicion on Peralez' previously immaculate facade. He had been losing both steam and ground in the polls ever since. The sergeant smiled at the thought that T-Bug would've appreciated her recalling Aristotle's definition of people as political animals. In that sense, Myers was an apex predator gaining on her prey, and that alone made Valerie feel as if things, for once, were going the right way. Or, at least, the least wrong.
The startling drop of her own name amid the presidential race coverage came entirely out of left field. A young, dark-haired woman standing before the pale facade of what she called Kress Hospital seemed to know more about the marine's treatment than the marine herself did. Confined to her dimly lit wards and the persistent fog in her mind, she remained, quite literally, in the dark about the fact that Sergeant Linder's name had gained recognition. The president's visits to her ward were public knowledge as well. Having overcome the initial shock, she accepted this new reality. After all, very little of President Myers' life could ever escape the spotlight, and even less—in the middle of her campaign.
The following day, Dr. Casteel noticed her inflamed eyes and reprimanded the sergeant for not following her instructions. She also informed her of the flowers sent from the White House—and the fact that they weren't permitted in the Neurology Department. The pursed lips and frown suggested that Dr. Casteel disapproved of the president's disregard for hospital policy too. Still, she passed Valerie the attached note and left.
It would've been nice to pretend she had managed to land at the bottom of Myers' personal memo, somewhere far below urgent state matters and yet another reminder to 'call Mom,' but she clearly hadn't. The white rectangle—equally formal in its shape and tone and stripped of any personal touch except the presidential signature—congratulated Sergeant Linder on her improvement and wished her continued 'exemplary record of service.' Valerie took the hint and sent the card straight to the bin.
Later that day, she tried on her shiny new cyberarm and adjusted its final design to make it look a little less shiny, and a little less new. The reporter had been right about that part, but it was the last bit of intel she would intercept from the outside world—on her doctor's orders, the TV panel in her ward went dark and mute. From now on, getting acquainted with her prosthesis was to be her sole entertainment until shipping out. That learning curve cramped her chrome fingers with frustration, barely soothed by the occasional walks in the hospital garden.
Located high above the ground, its greenery offered a welcome respite from the withering autumn beyond these walls, but it couldn't unwind her enough to forgive herself for the self-inflicted sting of hope. It had taken her four years to even consider moving on. Barely two weeks ago, the counter had been unceremoniously reset.
*****
A week later
For the past few weeks, she had settled into a new routine: all meetings strictly in the morning, a quick lunch, then a retreat into the Treaty Room for the rest of the day. Now that the thin margins her victory had been slipping through had finally closed, and everything hung in delicate balance, the White House rank and file might've found her shift of focus away from the campaign reassuring. If the president was absorbed in present affairs, it surely signaled she was confident in the future. Drowning in heavy thoughts and classified briefings, Rosalind was anything but.
Still, as long as the electoral coin kept spinning, it pulled everyone's attention off her hands. The 'free' states might claim independence from Washington, but their heartbeat still followed the same rhythm. With all concerned parties anticipating the winner, even the war machine had nearly ground to a halt. That slack carved out the time Myers desperately needed. The Treaty Room, in turn, offered her favorite fireplace, her favorite table, and her favorite kind of silence, only sharpened by the well-oiled ticking of the tall-case clock. A rare luxury in the campaign's turmoil, and an urgent necessity in light of a development she should've never overlooked.
Under her personal supervision, the FIA had established a full-fledged presence in Night City over a decade ago, but nearly all of its focus had remained on Arasaka and Militech. The first alarm bells had rung around four years ago, with a leaked report of Night Corp's AI tests. Coming from an unproven external source, it was troubling enough to justify infiltrating their headquarters. That attempt ended with the agent publicly exposed and the FIA forced to pull back. Then Texas, conveniently, became the low-hanging fruit and the new priority.
So, when it mattered most, the crucial crumbs of intel arrived with a simple merc. Once, she might've been surprised to learn that Valerie—she was still adjusting to that name—had been involved in this mess too, but it was so on-brand the president barely blinked. Had this story come from anyone else, she would've likely dismissed it as unusually well thought out but still a conspiracy theory. But once she had trusted the girl with her life, and that gut instinct—probably against her better judgement—hadn't changed.
And yet, those crumbs were too small and too stale to trace a proper lead, and came too late to prepare an effective contingency plan in case of her loss. As efficient as the agency was at gathering intelligence, hoarding it en masse only complicated the process of discerning the relevant, yet superficially unconnected pieces. Attempting to do so retroactively with a fraction of its manpower, all for discretion's sake, made it tenfold harder. The FIA had grown bloated, bureaucratic, and predictable, while the unconventional threat demanded lean ingenuity. Severely unprepared for the open phase of the conflict, Rosalind prioritized not spooking Peralez' puppeteers.
Accidentally exposing the existence of personality-altering tech to the public was another major concern. An unrestricted scientific advancement, layered atop economic instability and historically low literacy, had brewed a perfect Petri dish for conspiratorial thinking. The revelation that Pandora's box had been opened was ominous enough on its own. If the news broke containment, it would spark mass paranoia and civic unrest, threatening to collapse everything she had meticulously built over the years into irretrievable chaos. A steep uphill battle ahead—and that hill's slope a fucking minefield.
The sheer number of decisions to make and variables to take into account had been grinding her down. Normally, she was comfortable calling the shots without full information at hand. Fog of war was a perfectly mundane forecast—the higher she climbed, the thicker it got. But now, she was utterly blind, unsure where to plant her foot at each step, but compelled to keep moving or risk falling behind for good. The consequences of every choice would catch up with her much later, when she had no control over their outcome.
At least, when it came to Peralez himself, conventional methods still proved effective. An anonymous tip with footage of his aide speaking to the future murderer of her mother, paired with a paper trail linking his campaign's funding to the gang, was enough to push his estranged daughter—already paranoid over the inexplicable change in her father's character—into suspecting foul play. The FIA hardly needed to manipulate the evidence: as Federalist Mayor of Night City, Peralez had welcomed support from 6th Street gangers and personally met with a few upstanding members of the 'local militia.' When both wings of that militia plunged into a minor civil war of their own, contradicting the impression that the gang had fully thrown its weight behind Myers, it only added credibility to the agency's spin that the assassin was, in fact, Peralez' very own deranged admirer.
Meanwhile, a dedicated research team had been scrambling to reverse-engineer the tech in an attempt to formulate at least one feasible theory of how it could function. Of course, entirely hypothetically, on paper, as none of them had actually seen it in action, relying solely on four-year-old memories of a barely conscious girl—against the president's better judgement, indeed. Detecting traces of the 'influence' would be the first step, with prevention hopefully coming second. Obtaining or reproducing it, however…
Rosalind hadn't yet decided whether she wanted to go that far but wasn't sure she could resist the temptation either if directly presented with the choice. A world where she could not merely influence people, but realign their entire belief system to match what was expected of them… Absently, she wondered if the ethics course was still part of the future scientists' syllabus. Perhaps it would make a fitting topic for the next conversation with her mother. The thought introduced a frown, closely followed by the intercom's chime, red glow awaiting her response. She pressed the button and rubbed her eyes, weary of the endless pages to be read.
"Hannah Atwood to see you, ma'am." Her aide's voice, slightly distorted, sounded far too loud for the room. The president drummed her fingers against the polished tabletop before responding.
"Thank you, Carol. Send her in." Myers released the intercom switch and leaned back in her chair, watching the heavy door swing open. There was little point in hiding her persistent fatigue or the scattered datashards littering the massive table.
"Madam President, I've cleared your schedule per your morning request," the visitor informed her from the threshold, a polite smile on her lips and a tablet in her hands. The door behind her closed quietly.
"Well, thank you, Hannah. I was hoping for an update on Petrochem votes, but that'll do. Next time, just have your aide tell mine it's done. You know, the old-fashioned way," Rosalind said, not bothering to hide her irritation as well. She preferred to delay the scrutiny of the human-sized polygraph for as long as possible, but she could hardly refuse a meeting without a believable pretext. If only she had ordered the elevators disabled for unscheduled maintenance—the residual limp in the woman's gait could've made this visit a phone call.
"Felt like a chat, you know. Just to make sure we're on the same page." Hannah's voice carried far less deference now that they were private. She surveyed the room, likely noting anything out of the ordinary, and casually set the tablet down on the low table between the sofa and the fireplace before shuffling to the liquor cabinet in the corner to pour herself a whiskey. Very few people would dare behave this way in Myers' presence, but then again, very few had known her this long and this closely.
"You're here to drag me for pulling the plug on 'Meet with the Press,' aren't you?" Rosalind deliberately crossed her arms but didn't expect the defensive pose or the preemptive choice of topic to throw the woman off the scent. "I won't waste my time on that. Two people still watch it. Both on life support."
"Nah. I'm here to drag you for taking me for a fool," Hannah confirmed her suspicion, settling into the armchair directly in front of the Treaty table, glass in hand. "I cherished this hope you'd overcome your presidential midlife crisis, but as soon as your ass pulled a pinpoint ahead in the polls, you seem to have developed a new one." Far less deference. "The constant reschedules, late-night flights… Care to tell me what the fuck's going on?" That was too blunt even for her, which meant she was genuinely worried. And pissed. "I wouldn't've asked you, but Lloyd's so tight-lipped these days like his mouth's a butthole."
"Have you considered I might be having an affair?" Myers casually shrugged off the bluntness and offered another pointless misdirection.
"I actually have—you believe that?" Hannah sighed, rolling the tumbler between her palms. Rosalind had always found her a peculiar drinker, one who seemed to enjoy the idea of liquor more than the liquor itself. "Had to stop when I caught myself looking into that foster marine of yours. Too much even for you." The vexation in her visitor's voice was genuinely amusing, but it was more of a friendly dig than a probe. Still, unable to uncover a secret on purpose, Hannah had nearly stumbled upon another piece of the puzzle by chance. "If you insist on this line of defense, at least entertain me with a viable 'who.'"
"Lloyd, obviously," Myers replied dryly, and unfolded her arms, resting her elbows upon the table's smooth surface instead. "Like treating his mouth like a butthole too."
"Not bad, I'll give you that," her visitor nodded in approval. "Almost wish it were true. Too bad I know you tend to hole up here when serious shit hits the fan. And as your fucking Chief of Staff, it's kinda my job to know what shit it is this time."
"Hate to break the news, but we're in the middle of a war—and one week away from the election," the president habitually scoffed at her.
"Please. We both know Texas won't hold much longer. The election just decides who gets the spoils," equally habitually, Hannah dismissed the ridicule. "I'd rather it be you, but if you're keen on self‑sabotage, please, let me know. I'd like to evaluate my career options while I still have the time."
"Retirement's also a possibility, you know," Myers offered. Her determination to win was at an all‑time high, but for now she needed that limbo. Later, when she had to read her Chief of Staff in on what had truly been happening, the woman might even feel grateful for these last moments of ignorant bliss.
"No, thanks." Hannah waved the suggestion off and finally wet her lips with the whiskey. "I've missed twenty‑five Thanksgivings in a row, and I plan to stick to this sacred tradition until I strike turkey. So you owe me another term."
"Whatever keeps your family happy, I guess." The banter was unexpectedly soothing, almost therapeutic, and Rosalind found herself fighting a smile. "Doubt they appreciate bowling metaphors any more than I do."
"Speaking of happy, you want me to watch over Newcomb, or he's free to do whatever he wants?" Myers paused—the sudden shift in topic caught her off‑guard.
"That very much depends on what exactly we're talking about," she replied warily.
"Ah, you haven't seen the footage yet," the woman in front of her set the accessory whiskey aside and stretched her arm to pick up the tablet.
"Is it Peralez burning the NUS flag, and you are saving the news for my birthday?" Rosalind regarded the tablet with apprehension.
"Alas, nothing that exhilarating, but Newcomb seems to think your sarge can make a fine pet," Hannah muttered, scrolling through its contents.
"Can she?" Rosalind asked in a level voice, feeling completely out of the loop. Perhaps she should've paid more attention to her Communications Director's memos. And to the girl too, though that one had never given off an impression of a loose cannon.
"See for yourself." With a few swift taps on the tablet her Chief of Staff sent the file to the screen disguised as an idle mirror above the mantelpiece.
The video was shot from a first-person perspective, most likely through an eye-camera implant. Given the topic of the discussion, the distant solitary figure in olive PT gear was certainly Sergeant Linder. The president found the choice of a plain black cyberarm odd but made sure her face wouldn't reflect that. At least, complying with her expressed wishes, it hadn't eaten the girl's whole shoulder. Stopping an inch shy of the short sleeve, it might not give the marine a major boost in raw strength but hadn't taken another piece of her either.
Their last conversation had altered the circumstances too drastically to continue entertaining the idea of keeping the ex-merc close this time around. So, she dusted off a much older plan to send the girl to a military academy—especially since her new face and name wouldn't be tied to Saburo's murder—but remained uncharacteristically hesitant to convey this decision. Instead, for a time being, Myers chose to pretend Sergeant Linder didn't exist. Avoiding the problem, rather than facing it, was also out of character, but she justified it by being too overwhelmed with far graver issues to spare the bandwidth for something this small.
Contradicting her make-believe, the girl on the screen looked very much real even amidst the fake summer of the hospital's indoor garden, rows of marble planters with trees and shrubs spreading in every direction. Casually perched on a bench with her elbows propped against the knees, the marine appeared completely absorbed by something in her hands, her organic and metal fingers slightly brushing. This wasn't how Rosalind had expected to see that face for the first time, but it was actually the best way. She reluctantly touched the control panel to start the video and let the camera move closer.
At a distance, the posture alone made the figure resemble her merc—overlooking the different hair color—but as soon as the observer's shadow reached her, the marine raised her eyes, and the illusion of familiarity vanished. It was a good face, albeit pale, but too much of it had once been hidden behind a silly tattoo and an exo-jaw, so now Rosalind struggled to see any semblance or even assess how much of those features had been altered. The girl on the video jerked an eyebrow in an unspoken question, then tilted her head to the right, as if recognizing the person in front of her. The eye color and facial expressions remained unmistakably the same.
"Hey, do I know ya?" asked an unfamiliar voice with a familiar cadence.
"I didn't expect to meet a fan. Sarah Hartman, NN54," the unseen reporter introduced herself with an audible smile, and the shadow of her outstretched hand brushed the grass beneath the marine's feet. "Sergeant Linder, if I'm not mistaken?" The girl interrupted whatever she was doing and straightened up, offering the perfectly recognizable cheeky smile in return. The artificial wind gently rustled glossy leaves of a shrub behind her head.
"You're not," she lifted her hands slightly, and the camera zoomed in on her fingers, streaked with something grey. "Sorry, hands're in clay," she explained with an apologetic shrug, "Save that handshake for another time, wontcha?" After a moment of deliberation, Rosalind concluded that she liked the new sound of that voice, deeper and more velvety, but still bearing the same spry rhythm.
"Sure." Judging by the change in distance and the angle of view, the reporter chose to sit on the opposite bench. "Enjoying your stay at Kress Hospital, Sergeant Linder?"
"Well, I'm walking, talking. Got a chance to become an artist. What's not to love?" The girl responded nonchalantly but evidently didn't lower her guard. "Thought this was a military hospital. They patch up media too?"
"Oh, no, I'm just visiting a friend here." The woman's tone made no effort to hide it was merely a front.
"Uh-huh. So how's your friend?" the sergeant played along.
"Died an hour ago," the reporter sighed in exaggerated disappointment. "I'll have to find another if I want to talk to you again." The girl' eyebrows rose in amusement.
"Hope your next friend feels better, I guess." Valerie shook her head, smiling. "Doubt it'll worth the effort, though."
"And I doubt it will not." The playful notes in the reporter's voice never faded, nor did the girl's grin.
Rosalind was certain her face wouldn't betray her, but she wasn't too thrilled about this first-person experience of her marine flirting with someone else. The marine—she corrected herself, pushing the possessiveness aside. And then it hit her. She laughed, stopping the playback and staring straight through the mask of bemused innocence on Hannah's face.
"Are you really wasting my time just to gauge my reaction?" the president asked, incredulous.
"And whose fault is that?" The woman was clearly enjoying herself. "Two separate visits to a nobody piqued my interest—that's two more than you paid me last week."
"You had a scheduled kneecap replacement. Hardly a decent photo op." The reproach had no visible effect.
"Sure, but you know what a decent photo op produces, Rosalind? Fucking photos." That was a fair observation, but not incriminating enough to make her yield any ground.
"You should be grateful there were none. The girl looks much better now," Myers shrugged. "If I've satisfied your curiosity…" She moved her hand to the right, eager to turn off the screen. Watching it alone, without Hannah's calculated examination, felt like a safer option.
"Oh, come on! You'll like it better in twenty seconds—give or take. They'll start talking about you." Her Chief of Staff clearly didn't appreciate the attempt to wrap up her entertainment.
"I'm not the most vain person around," Rosalind denied the implication. "That title's fiercely contested in DC."
"I'm rooting for you in that race too," Hannah quipped, her voice dripping with performative admiration. Ignoring the poke, Myers tapped her fingertips against the tabletop, still in deliberation. That nose for bullshit would lead the woman to the semblance of truth sooner or later, but it might keep her busy and out of her hair for now, at least. In the grand scheme of things, the 'Sergeant Linder' mystery was a highly expendable one.
"Fine, but twenty more seconds is all I'll give," the president conceded, resuming the playback.
"Is it a hobby?" The marine frowned at the question. The voice had to clarify, "The clay thing."
"Um, no. Y'know, this thing feels nothing like mine," she nodded at her cyberarm casually, as if losing a limb were a mere nuisance. "So, I kinda have to trick my brain it is. My PT says it helps." The sergeant paused for a moment, then opened her hand—the camera zoomed closer on something resembling a severely deformed caltrop on her palm. "The bird ain't buying that." The invisible woman's laughter grated on Myers' ears, but the girl didn't seem to share the sentiment.
"So… you and President Myers—what were you talking about during her visits?" The question prompted the marine to toss the reporter an inquisitive look, mirroring the one that Rosalind studied her face with now—the merc she remembered had never been good at keeping it straight.
"And here I thought you were digging my art," she inclined her head in mock reproach but promptly offered a convincing answer. "Honestly? My drugs did all the talking. Can't remember shit, just hoping President Myers got a laugh outta it." Distracting maneuvers, luckily, seemed to remain her forte, but the glimpse of cold indifference in those grey eyes was new. If Rosalind had to guess, her avoidance had been noted. The sergeant glanced to the left and rose from her bench. "Um, sorry to interrupt, looks like my PT's back. Means I gotta delta for some chrome check or brain scan or whatever if I wanna get back into those cammies by next week."
Myers stilled her hand from stopping the video—for now she could only hope the footage was extremely fresh. The USMC wouldn't refuse her even if she wished to snatch the sergeant right out of the barracks, but atypical requests attracted exceptional attention. Preventing the girl from making another foolish attempt on her own life outweighed the trouble, though.
"Can you answer one last question?" The frame indicated that the reporter had left her seat as well.
"Can ya do it on the go?" The marine started walking, not waiting for a reply.
"Sure." The camera accompanied her along the way, giving the president a chance to appraise that profile. Alas, it wasn't half bad either. "Who are you voting for in this election, Sergeant Linder?" The woman's voice took on a more professional tone for a change—likely in one last attempt to salvage a usable segment for her newsroom as nothing else in the footage could make the cut. Without slowing pace, Valerie turned her face toward her.
"Um, President Myers, of course," she responded with a smile, likely entertaining their unintentional inside joke, and added before looking away, "Fat chance of finding a marine with a different answer." The camera carried on alongside as the reporter asked a follow-up.
"Any specific reason why? Once a Night City resident, you might lend a fresh perspective to our viewers." The wheels of the press were certainly spinning fast, but Myers had little doubt that Sergeant Linder's identity, personally cooked by Reed, might crack under that little pressure. In any case, the girl's telling manner of speaking made any other place of origin highly disputable to anyone with ears.
"Meaning, 'sides Semper Fi?" The sergeant slowed to a halt to face the camera once more, fixing her gaze above it as if carefully choosing her words, while the artificial breeze shuffled her blonde hair. She wasn't smiling anymore, but that calm, serious look reminded Rosalind of her merc too. "Dunno much 'bout President Myers personally. You mighta figured that much. But she sure got a hell of a backbone. Can't say the same 'bout any politico from NC." Myers raised her eyebrows. Who would've thought the girl could be that good, giving a perfect non-answer while looking like a USMC recruitment poster? The sergeant took her cue to flash her final smile to the camera. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" The video stopped at the frame of her walking away toward an older man—likely the mentioned physical therapist. In a split second, the screen turned back into a simple mirror.
"See now what got Newcomb pumped up?" The question drew the president's attention back to her visitor.
"Well, I must admit the girl's surprised me." Rosalind caught herself tapping on the table again in contemplation and forced her hand to rest before continuing. "Still, not sure how she could be useful."
"Useful? Strong word. But creating the narrative instead of chasing it would make the guy's life easier, and a pet hero having your back certainly wouldn't hurt," Hannah shrugged, then said with a nonchalant smile, "Plenty of marines look good in the uniform, but hardly any can string together a proper sentence. We made the last one we found our President, you know. I'd look twice at such a wonder too, even if that lingo made my ears bleed."
"I thought you didn't approve of my 'foster marine,'" Myers' voice conveyed the disinterest suitable for discussing the taste of water.
"Nah. You may run a puppy shelter in the White House for all I care," Hannah sighed, then added, her tone unusually stern, "As long as you also get to live here."
"As I see it, it's not me who wants to adopt a puppy," Rosalind remarked dryly and found the right time to ask, "How old's the footage?"
"Doubt they've aired it yet," the woman put her mind at ease. "The guy kept an eye on your sarge in hopes of earning your forgiveness. Don't know why he's scared shitless—everyone knows you are meek as a lamb." The president gave an uneasy smirk at the commentary. At least Newcomb's timidness in her presence never translated into a lack of confidence in his dealings with the press. Otherwise, he would've been completely useless.
"He still has no plan. And very little time if the girl's up for hospital discharge," she noted as she reclined into the chair, carefully nudging her Chief of Staff toward the preferred course of action.
"Not if you intervene," Hannah suggested, obedient to the prompt. Rosalind took her time to imitate meditation over the request.
"Fine. I'll arrange her convalescent leave till the end of the year," she reluctantly agreed. "But do a proper vetting before you let Newcomb tie the girl to the admin. Or there'll be two people vying for my forgiveness." Poking holes in the sergeant's cover-up wasn't ideal, but it would give her enough time to deal with the mess of her own making.
"Not my first rodeo, Rosalind." The woman sounded almost scandalized.
"Surely hope that much." The president nodded and muttered as an afterthought, "A sergeant's allowance won't get a cardboard box in DC. Have Lloyd arrange her lodging." Her Security Department maintained several safe houses around Washington with aerial access and air-gapped privacy, which would come in handy. "Everything else's on you."
"Interesting," her Chief of Staff drawled thoughtfully, "having another tête-à-tête in mind, aren't you?" Myers raised an eyebrow at the suggestion and made a point to keep direct eye contact. She should've been more subtle, but any answer now would sound like an excuse. Yet, her visitor didn't seem to be waiting for one. "In case your sarge mentions it, I had my aide tell yours—the old-fashioned way, as you put it—to send her flowers on your behalf. Didn't want you to look like the careless asshole you are," she said with an innocent smile that widened as Rosalind involuntarily pursed her lips. Unknowingly, her Chief of Staff made her look exactly like that. The silent treatment was fine. Safe, even. After all, there had been more silence than words between them over those years. But dry formality couldn't sit with the girl. It never had.
"That's… very thoughtful of you." She could hear the strain in her own voice, but they both already knew she had lost this round.
"Might send her more now. At least she gives a fuck if you win." The woman looked unbearably pleased with herself.
"Once is more than enough, thank you," Rosalind cut the gloating short, promptly mending the breach in her cool. "Since you've already looked into her file, care to take another glance and tell me her regiment? And for the love of God, don't make me call the wrong colonel just because it's your idea of fun." Something in her voice silenced Hannah's content smile for good.
"Huh, you seem to know me well enough too. It's Bert's," the woman said plainly, wary of the shift in her mood.
"Look at you, so useful. Like a real Chief of Staff," Rosalind attempted a smile, aiming to ease the tension in the room. It wasn't Hannah's fault she had been delaying handling this matter.
"All right," her visitor grabbed her tablet and rose from the seat.
"All right?" This hasty retreat surely came as a surprise.
"You obviously won't spill more beans, and I have too much to chew on already to risk irking you further. I'm almost sure it's not another bout of midlife crisis," Hannah clarified with a hint of conciliation. "Can't rule it out entirely, though, considering there's a much younger girl in the mix." She couldn't help but throw in the final dig. The consistency made Rosalind chuckle. "But otherwise, you seem fine, so I can return to twisting arms."
"Hannah…" Myers' voice reached her visitor's back as she was already at the door.
"What?" Hannah glanced back over her shoulder.
"Thank you… for the pep talk." And for the nudge to deal with the sergeant. She would do it in a week. Two weeks, at most.
"My pleasure, Madam President," Hannah responded, opening the door, her voice once again perfectly respectful.