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A wry grin slides across Elder’s face “Every tie ”
“Ha!” I punch hiht we’ve been over this before: you’re the one who speaks sketch ”
Elder pushes the heavy submarine-like door closed, and Ito forget the code
“I think Orion was scared,” I say, following Elder down the hall
“He was loons ” Elder’s voice is bitter “That was filmed around the time Eldest tried to kill him, and it’s clear he’d already lost it Orion was paranoid—”
“He had a right to be paranoid ” I can’t help it; I touch the s the way Orion had scratched his skin in the video What did it take for hi deeper into his skin, to rip the wires fro ht of hoas those wires, dripping in gore and blood, andew
“It’s weird, though ” I pause, thinking “All the rest of the videos have been on thatThis one was already loaded on a floppy, sitting in the armory None of the other ones had text And none of the other ones were that old That video was made just before Orion faked his own death Maybe someone, I don’t know, messed with it ”
“Maybe Maybe not ” Elder frowns at the video “Look, I get that Orion made these vids for you, and you feel like you have to solve his frexing riddle But we’re going to have to figure out how to live on this ship without whatever stupid h his hair He usually does this when he’s thinking, but there’s anger in the way he does it now, as if he’s only doing it to stop hi “We have serious proble waste of ti to fix itself Orion’s just distracting us from the real problems ”
I bite e for us; he left it foroff the ship, I know it The key to fixing the engine, the reason for the delay—so important
Besides How o on like this?
“Hold on,” Elder growls, and then turns away fro his wi-com button on the side of his neck with such force that it looks like it hurts He speaks in a low voice for a moment, then shouts, “What?!”
“What is it?” I ask softly, putting my hand on his arm
Elder jerks away froht there ” He presses the button behind his ear again and glances atoff down the hallway toward the elevators “I’ve got to go,” he says
“Why? What’s wrong?” I have to jog to catch up “Elder, what’s wrong?”
“Bartie’s causing more trouble ” Elder slams his fist into the elevator call button “I can’t waste my time with this anymore,” he says