She had a point—Sommer had to concede that. But that didn’t excuse her setting up the run behind his back. “You could have told me,” he growled.
The hard set to her eyes softened, just a little. “The anticipation is almost as hard on you as thunderstorms are,” she said quietly. “You know, I meant what I said before about taking this show on the road.”
Or in other words, the subject of her unauthorized experiment with the trap was closed. Temporarily, at least. “We can’t afford to move,” he told her flatly. “Our equipment is here, our computer contract is here, all our financial support is here.”
She gazed at him, studying his face. “We’re close, Adrian. Real close. You saw what happened. We had a genuine grip on the life—on the soul—there.”
“Except that it didn’t look any better than the last attempt we made.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “We’ll see what happens when the computer’s chewed over it.”
Sommer shook his head heavily. “It’s not working, Jessica. Somewhere along the line we’re missing something. Proximity requirements, pattern identification, power, trap design—something.”
Sands’s eyes flicked over his shoulder to the TV monitor. “Well, we’re not going to be able to get the trap much closer than this. Not without putting it in someone’s lap. But if it’s pattern identification or one of the others, it’s just a matter of time and experimentation.”
Sommer sighed. “I know,” he said. “It’s just that…” He shook his head.
“I know; it’s been a long road for you,” Sands said quietly, her voice about as sympathetic as it ever got. “Look, I can pull all the packs and shut things down here. Why don’t you go on home, okay?”
Check back tomorrow for more Soulminder.
