Dressing up and dining out. Too bad the man sitting across from her wasn’t J. B. Not that the Armorer would have been enjoying himself. For all of his talents, he wasn’t a man for casual finery or amusement. To a woman who had once lived in the late span of the twentieth century, the Armorer could seem almost supernaturally cool and dispassionate.
Still, Mildred mused, while J.B. was predictable, he was usually predictable in all the right ways.
Jamaisvous, on the other hand, was still an unknown commodity. Charming, handsome, silver-tongued, and like herself, intelligent, he seemed to be more the type a woman like herself should be attracted to.
So, why didn’t Mildred trust him?
“I said, would you like some more wine?” Jamaisvous asked, snapping Mildred out of her reverie. He held up the bottle from the silver ice bucket and presented it to her.
Mildred held out her empty glass. “Pour.”
Jamaisvous did so with a flourish of the wrist.
‘ ‘I always thought you government types preferred a cold, sterile environment,” Mildred remarked, stretching like a lazy cat in the island heat. The bal- cony offered up a spectacular view of the ocean, and the warm sea breeze blowing across her body was most comforting.
Jamaisvous leaned on his arm and watched her as he spoke. “Really, Dr. Wyeth, I was hoping for some time away from talking shop. That was one reason why I left Dr. Tanner to his own devices for brunch.”
“Sorry, the subject just came to mind.”
“What you really mean is why did ‘they’ choose Puerto Rico as a site for Operation Chronos’s trawling experiments?”
Mildred turned back to face him. “Yes,” she replied directly.
Jamaisvous paused, the wind whipping through and tousling his graying hair, then idly checked the backs of his hands, holding them out, extended from the front of his body. “Would you believe the group wanted to work on their tans?” he asked, deadpan.
Mildred couldn’t help herself. She had to chuckle. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
The phrasing, the joking-Jamaisvous’s speech patterns were unlike any of those she’d heard since coming back to life in Deathlands, and after some thought, she’d understood why. Of course they weren’t unfamiliar to her since he was also a freezie. His speech, the teasing sarcasm, the timbre of his voice, the predark slang he used-it was all very comforting.
While making her uneasy as hell.
“You have a most fascinating voice,” she said, forthright and boldly.
Jamaisvous looked up from his omelette with a quizzical expression. “Is there something wrong with the way I speak?”
“Exactly the opposite. I like listening to you talk.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it…and you never answered my question.”
“Of course I did. The possibility of their working on their tans. I asked if you would believe such a statement.”
“No, Silas. I wouldn’t,” Mildred said.
“I thought not. The project is long dead. Why concern yourself with trivial matters now?”
“Nothing involving the Totality Concept ever dies. At least, that’s been my experience,” Mildred said, a tinge of unease in her voice.
“In this instance, you are incorrect. What does it matter why they chose to set up here?”
“It matters to me.”
“They had their reasons. Just as you do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Like you and Dr. Tanner, two members of the merry marching Cawdor band that seem totally out of place. The intense redhead, the skinny one with the glasses, the bloodless albino teen-even the Caw-dor boy. They’re of a kind with Ryan, those four. Not much of what you or I think of as being civilized among them. Stand all of you against a wall and ask even the youngest child to pick the two who weren’t quite the same and the success rate would be most high.”
“No, they’re not civilized, if by that you mean urbane. And yes, any child could pick out Doc and me-because he’s an oldie and I’m the only black,” Mildred retorted hotly.
“Oh, please, that’s not what I meant at all. Don’t twist my words to bring up your unwarranted ire,” Jamaisvous replied, holding up a hand to still Mildred’s burst of anger. “You and Doc Tanner are the only two members of the group with something on the ball beyond innate cunning and alpha-male dominance. I think your former places in time have something to do with that. We don’t belong here, Dr. Wy-eth. We’re all lost.”