Quoted By:
"All Lottie. Except for the part where you bailed her crispy ass out? Never bothered to tell anybody you had <span class="mu-i">god</span> powers?"
"It was kind of personal."
"Kind of personal. Okay. Well, I'm glad you decided to un-personal it, because—"
You have finally formed a coherent sentence. "What are you doing here? You didn't, um— you weren't on the—"
"I wasn't in on your suicide pact? No kidding. But you told me and Pat all about it, yeah?" She jerks her thumb back at Pat, who inclines her head. "<span class="mu-i">All</span> about it. So we got to talking about it, and we got to realizing that you were planning on violently relocating... what the fuck is it... thousands of people? Tens of thousands?"
You don't actually know how many employees Headspace has. You don't say anything.
"Yeah. You went into it not even knowing how many. And you didn't mention any kind of plan for what to do about those people, or... like... how to explain anything to them, or what to do if they got hurt, or how to deal with the massive fucking civil war over who's in charge now, or anything afterward. At all. Which seemed a little short-sighted, no offense."
"Oh," you say.
"So we ended up... uh..." Madrigal looks over her shoulder. "The scope kind of... I mean, you told a lot of people already, and then other people who heard wanted in, just to gawk, I guess, and I pulled some contacts, and some of the others pulled their contacts— I guess Earl got the spelunkers— and we knew where you were gonna end up, thank god. So it wasn't too hard to hike over, or dream-zap over, or whatever you do. So, yeah. We've kind of been prepping all day for you to..." She gestures up and down at you. "But then <span class="mu-i">that</span> asshole popped out— not you, Bug Man. Gil. <span class="mu-i">That</span> asshole."
She means Real Ellery, who's standing tensely to the side, hands in pockets, eyes trained on an imaginary horizon. "He popped out, and his ex— poor woman, by the way, oh man— and the Headspace guy himself, and Gil, but no Miss Big-Dick Princess. So you got a lot of people worried you blew yourself up."
"I wasn't worried," Pat says dryly.
"Okay, she wasn't worried. And Ell wasn't worried— he said he shot you in the head?" Madrigal raises her eyebrows. "Sounds like something he'd do. But your Bug Man was all, you know, 'we need to do something,' 'even if she survived it doesn't mean she can get out on her own,' blah blah blah, so we had the rescue thing. And it looks like you needed it, no offense, so I suggest you give him a big fat kiss on the mouth."
(2/3)
