It was late. Despite being exhausted after the day he'd had at the Ops Center, he'd gone for a run. It was a good way for him to clear his head. Now he sat on a bench along a pathway. The grounds were arranged with private little areas for intimate little talks. Only he was alone. Oh well.

He was sorting through the data he'd gathered today, doing his best to arrange all the strands and hints and bang you over the head facts, into a coherent whole he could transmit to Marc at the speed of thought. He looked down at his watch. Almost show time.

Hooking into Marc's brain had nearly left him insensate the first time. It was like attempting to keep up with an array of supercomputers dumping a live data stream and make sense of it.  Now, after some practice, it was no longer painful, even if it was still rather teeth-rattling.  Not to mention humbling.

And then they had contact. Marc's personality was suddenly just *there* in his head.  Reno gritted his teeth and presented the report for Marc to study. Study. Hah. That took him a couple of nanoseconds.  And just like that, Marc was gone.

Reno discovered he'd stopped breathing and restarted his lung function with a shudder.

Marc might, or might not, get back to him on his thinking on this. Frustrating, to say the least. The last time Reno complained about that Marc had given him that hint of a smile that tended to make Reno's blood run cold and waited for Reno to think. "Oh," Reno had said when he realized Marc had no plans to do so, "you think I should be able to put it together for myself. Well, yeah, but how the hell do I know if I'm putting it all together the same way you are? I don't have all the info like you. And now you're sending me off-world down to the Refuge and I'll be even more out of the loop."

"Stop pretending you are a mental light-weight. I have faith in you," Marc had replied. This had infuriated Reno. But, he had to admit, ever since he'd done his best to drive the cobwebs out of his brain matter and get busy playing catchup himself.

So, catch up.  He hadn't missed Tommy diligently boxing and sealing records which were obviously being sent off-site. Smoke screen. If there was something there worth breaking in for, it would have been long gone before Reno arrived. 

And the mysterious meeting after hours with Stephen. Cal, Eli and Tabitha had headed that way. In fact Reno had made quite certain he was near the kitchens when Tabitha left to listen for any gossip going on. He wondered who theyoung woman had been he'd caught sight of in the Conference Room. Of course around here there really weren't many after-hours. The Ops Center and the Infirmary were 24/7 affairs.  He had dropped into the Infirmary before his run to check on how everyone was doing. The staff had things in hand, but they could use some additional resources there too, it was obvious.

And what was with the Ops Center madness this morning?  The tech had been unexpected, that alone had thrown him a bit. How is it the Council had no idea? He knew Stephen was supposed to be sending regular reports.  Surely someone, over all these years, would have noticed? But Marc hadn't had any knowledge of this. In fact Marc had been pretty much blank on exactly how the teams were trained and coordinated.

So, back to what had happened... He could buy that the details of the early morning craziness was a real-live example of a bad day at the office, but still, there he was, a Council representative, and there they were calling in backup from Home - totally against the Council's explicit orders.  But not, presumably Marc's?  They could have whisked him out of the room so he didn't see that. So... were they trying to put Marc on the spot? If Bella or Maya or Margaret learned of that stuff and called Marc on it he might have to try to enforce even the stupidest Council rules until he had hardened up his power-base a bit more. Or was it Bella Stephen was gunning for?  Reno sort of wished he could be there the next time Marc and Bella had a little heart-to-heart. Marc could fricassee someone with a glance when in a bad mood.

Power bases...  Marc wasn't naturally popular among the Awakened. He'd been too absent a presence. Where Stephen had a whole host of natural allies, Marc was, pretty much, on his own. And worse, seemed to find that natural and to his taste.  Reno just hoped if Marc failed at whatever the hell he was doing, he, Reno, could get his own ass out of the way of the blast in time.

Reno asked himself for the hundredth time just why he'd agreed to help Marc in the first place. It wasn't rational. He'd been okay, keeping his head down, doing what he had to do, with not too much enthusiasm, granted, but that had been a good thing. No one had been beating down his door to get him more involved in shit he knew he wanted none of. He'd been safe and okay. Now... Crap.

He got up and headed home, such as it was: a colorless totally personality-free bedroom, alone. Maybe he'd have to think about doing something about that last.

When Tommy arrived at his office the next morning he found Reno slumped in the visitor's chair. He was fast asleep, braced half-way against the desk and half-way against the wall.  Tommy looked at the coffee he'd brought for himself and in the spirit of true sacrifice, removed the top and waved it under Reno's nose.

Reno came awake with a start. "Oh, man," he said, looking around struggling to get his bearings. "How long have I been asleep?"

"No idea," Tommy replied. "I just got here."

Reno looked over at the clock and sighed.  Tommy handed him the coffee. He looked down at it and said, "Hey, this is yours. I'll get some in a bit."

"Well, when you do you can bring me some too. Looks like you need it more than I do."

Reno sighed.

"Have a rough first day of training?" Tommy asked.

Reno yawned, between grateful sips of coffee. "Well, not for me. Pretty grueling for the teams out there though."

"Yeah, there are days like that," Tommy replied as he sat down and began arranging things in his mind for the beginning of his day. "So, what can I do for you?"

"I, uhm, is it like that often?  Do you pull folks off Home often?"

"When we need to. We don't have enough active teams. Sometimes we don't have much of a choice." 

Reno raised an eyebrow at that and slumped back down into his chair. "I imagine Stephen has requested additional resources.  Don't look at me like that, I need to ask these questions, even the obvious ones. Just in case."

"Yes," Tommy replied crisply, his irritation with the Council showing. "Over and over again. We need more Listeners, we especially need more healers. We need.. more of everything really."

"Any idea why you haven't gotten it?"  Reno asked.

"I don't know. Maybe Marc blocked every request," Tommy snapped, despite himself. He tended to get defensive where Stephen was concerned.

"All right, all right, I get the hint. And Marc, I was lead to believe, has very little knowledge regarding the teams or the infirmary. Frankly, I can't see him refusing to grant more resources for useful projects. I mean, why? Doesn't make sense, does it."  Reno was mostly talking to himself as Tommy bustled busily around.

"Anything going on today I should know about?" Reno asked.

Tommy looked up guiltily. "Nothing I'm authorized to report," he said then immediately was sorry he'd snapped at Reno.  "You make me nervous. Don't you have something to do? Like get trained?"

"Nope. Cal is busy this morning. I'm free as a bird to sit right here and pester you."

Tommy's look of dismay brought Reno casually to his feet.

"Oh, right," Reno said. "I keep forgetting I'm the enemy. I'll bring you some coffee after I attempt some breakfast, okay?" 

"No, no it's not that.  I mean I think you're alright, that you're not a bad guy but I feel like I'm not supposed to, you know?"

Reno met Tommy's eyes for a moment. "I know," he said softly. "Considering how little support you've been getting from the Council, which is pretty clear already... And I wish to God I knew if I were a good guy in this. Let me say this though. I worked for the Council before Marc decided to get involved. I never heard of any requests coming up to any Council members from Stephen or from anyone else. Granted, I wasn't working on resources or even on relationships with the Refuge, but still. You think I'd have heard something, wouldn't you."

Reno's voice trailed off as he wandered out the door in the general direction of the dining room.  Tommy stared after him.