I was silent. Caldera gave an irritated shake of her head and went back to her typing. “You know, if you want to be an auxiliary, you’re going to have to shift that attitude.”

“I thought the reason I was probationary was because I was a murder suspect.”

“No, that’s the reason the other Keepers have a problem with you.”

I paused at that. “Wait. Does that mean you actually trust me?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t not say it either.”

“Let’s just say I’m not worried about you going psycho on us,” Caldera said. “But it takes a bit more than that.”

“Like?”

“You have to be part of a team,” Caldera said, looking up at me. “You’re still thinking of this as a solo act. That’s not how it works. When you’re on call, you’re part of something bigger than you, and that means you’re not in charge anymore. If head office says no, you listen to them and you drop it. You don’t pretend you didn’t hear them, and you definitely don’t go and do what they specifically told you not to do and then pretend it was all just a misunderstanding.”

“You’re still pissed about that thing at the Tiger’s Palace last year, aren’t you?”

“I know you can handle the practical side of the job,” Caldera said. “That’s not the issue. You’re on probation because I want to see if you can follow orders.”

“I haven’t broken any of your rules,” I said. “Which you should already know, given that you’ve been checking up on me.”

“That just means you haven’t done it where I can see.”

“Are you always this paranoid?”

“It’s called taking precautions. Look, just keep doing what you’ve been doing this last month and you’ll be fine. You done with your report?”

I shrugged. “Can’t exactly finish it, but it’s up to date.”

“Let’s knock off, then. You coming to Red’s?”

“Yeah. Let me pick up my stuff and I’ll meet you there.”

| | | | | | | | |

There were some perks to working with the Keepers.

I wasn’t a Keeper auxiliary, so I didn’t get the full package. I didn’t get a Keeper signet, or even the limited version that auxiliaries carry, and I didn’t get one of the access keys that would have let me gate in and out through the wards around the Westminster station. But I got paid, and I had a temporary access card that got me past the front desk, and it did give me a bit more status in dealing with Council personnel.

More interestingly from my point of view, it opened up a few doors I hadn’t known about beforehand. It turned out that when they weren’t on the job, Keepers were still human beings, and they had hobbies like everyone else. Shouldn’t have come as a surprise, I guess, but it’s always easy to forget that members of an institution do actually have personal lives. And one of the centres for those hobbies was Red’s.