When we enter the breakroom to check on Marina, we find her looking happy and relaxed as she chats with a man of about her age over a cup of tea. He has light brown skin tinged red and short, spiky black hair. The pants and button-up tunic he’s wearing are mottled blue and gray. He and Marina project the comfort of old friends catching up with each other, and I feel another pang of anxiety over my upcoming chance to reconnect with Deirdre. Marina catches sight of us and cheerfully waves us over. “Xiao, these are my friends Mariah and Cleve. They’re from Data Haven, that settlement that I was stationed at. They have so much computing power there! We brought a laptop with a GPU back with us.”
Xiao stands up to shake hands with me and Cleve, offering us a friendly smile. He’s a bit taller than both of us and well muscled. I expect his job is quite physical. Given that he’s wearing a uniform of some sort—there are epaulets on his tunic—and in a government building, he could be part of security maybe? Or ranger? Although this doesn’t really look like the tattered remains of Ayumu’s outfit. But that was for field use, so maybe it was different? None of this matters really. He’s Marina’s friend, and it’s good to meet him, especially since he seems to have helped her regain her equilibrium.
“So tell me, what is it like in the interior?” he asks.
“The interior? Are you asking about the Monsoon Jungle? And compared to what?” Cleve asks back. “Here? Well, we don’t have water like your coast.”
Xiao clarifies that he means the area around Data Haven. “What dangers are there? I know that there’s a giant mountain range there that divides us from Morgan Industries.”
“I’m sure Cleve can describe the terrain to you and all the issues he’s had driving through it,” I say with a laugh, and Cleve nods. “But if you’re interested in the flora, Marina has brought back a variety of samples of stuff that doesn’t grow around here but does around Data Haven. And even some that grow across those mountains in Morgan territory. Those samples are back in our rover.”
“Is this just idle curiosity, or do you have something specific you’re asking about?” Cleve asks Xiao, looking for additional context.
Xiao chuckles as if we’ve caught him at something and then says, “Actually, I’m curious if you’ve been to the Morgan domes. If you can tell me, oh, what’s their defensive posture? Are they fenced in? Do they have guards everywhere? Is there a watch? Especially by the coast. I know they have harbors…”
Ah, we’re talking with a Cleve. I shoot a glance at Marina. “Is this a conversation we should be having before we even talk to Deirdre? We’ve got a meeting with her tomorrow morning.”
“Oh! Uh, yes,” she says, not expecting that question. Perhaps she didn’t realize Xiao was working just now. That’s clear from the more pointed questions Cleve has drawn out. Marina shrugs. “I think at this point it’s fine.” After all, she’s already told a few dozen citizens that Morgan is on the way.
“Well, in that case, here’s the numbers we’ve got,” Cleve says, thrilled to finally have an opportunity to share all the intel he’s gathered with someone interested in listening. He pulls out his journal and starts relating everything he observed at the dome. What’s the posture of Morgan’s forces? That they’re on the move in this direction!
Xiao stops Cleve before he gets too far into the weeds. “We should go to my office. I just thought you might have some casual information. This is useful intelligence.”
“What exactly is your position?” I ask.
“I’m one of the officers among the mariners. Don’t think of us like a navy, per se.”
“You’re not on the council? Part of the government? Or are you?”
“Yes, I am. Just won my appointment last year, actually. But that’s just a service that I do. It’s really just an extension of my role in the mariners.”
With that new information, I properly present Cleve as more than just Marina’s friend, and this becomes a business meeting between government representatives held in Xiao’s office. Just in case he follows up with Deirdre later, I leave myself out of this introduction. Xiao has only heard my first name once, from Marina, and it’s unlikely he’ll remember much of the mere aide after a long strategy talk with Datajack Prime.