The meeting broke up the way they always did.
Jin was first to the door, already murmuring into his phone in the clipped Western dialect he used for his father's people. Elias gathered his files into a stack so square it looked machined. Kali stopped at Master's shoulder to say something about the Tower's delivery schedule, and he nodded without looking away from the hologram, and she went too.
Carrie left last. On her way past my chair she tapped the table twice in front of me—'equipment hall, seven tomorrow'—and didn't wait to see if I'd understood.
I stayed where I was.
