The Nexus Read Online Free PDF Page B

letter.  I always have.”
    “And you’ve always tried to make sure others do the same.”
    Corey’s expression tightened.  “Is that a bad thing?  We have orders for a reason.  If we’re not interested in following them, our department may as well not exist.”
    The director softened.  “I admire your loyalty, Corey.  We’re very dependent on your devotion to doing your job and doing it well.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You’ve learned the importance of following orders.  But in time you’ll have to realize something else as well.”
    “Sir?”
    The director’s steel-gray eyes took Corey in an intense stare as he answered:  “People are more important than orders.  Now, I know Bradley Park can be a bit cavalier—”
    “Cavalier?  Last time he was on a mission he changed the entire plan on the fly.”
    “And it worked.”
    Corey shuffled his feet.  “Well, yeah...”
    “We’re a team, Corey.  Different parts of the team have different strengths.  Your strength is your loyalty.  Bradley’s strength is innovation.”
    “You call direct disobedience ‘innovation’?”
    “Calm yourself, Corey.  Bradley was disciplined for his actions as you well know.  His one-month suspension from participating in any mission is over as of tonight.”
    Corey sighed.  “Figures his first mission back would be with me.”
    “It’s no accident, as I’m sure you’re aware.  He will be a permanent part of the new team I’m assembling around you.  You see, there’s another strength of yours that we’d like to cultivate:  your leadership ability.”
    Corey tried to shrug modestly.  He wasn’t much at taking criticism, but he may have been even worse at taking credit.
    “People follow you, Corey,” the director went on.  “Even when you don’t try to lead them, they follow you.  It’s in your blood to help others become the best they can be—even others who seem like they’ll never reach their potential.  I realize Bradley Park is something of a loose cannon at times.  That’s why I want him with you.  You can help curb those impetuous notions of his.”
    “I’ll try to, sir.”
    “But,” Director Holiday added, “we can’t have you overreacting.  I want you channeling his energies, not suppressing them.  Understood?”
    Corey tried to push away his reluctance.  “Yes, sir.  If this is the assignment you’ve chosen for me, I accept it.”
    “Try to remember Bradley is a person, not an assignment.  Besides, you’re going to have to get used to this sort of thing, you know.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “We’re looking for more recruits like Bradley.  Our department has shown itself to be a little soft—effective, but soft.  We need more—how shall I put it?—more of a free spirit on this team.  More daring.  More...recklessness, if I may say so.  It’s a risky element to bring to the department, I’ll admit.  Risky, but necessary.  We’re working on it right now.”
    “You found Jill Branch,” Corey concluded.
    “We did.”
    “And...?”
    “She’s thinking things over.”
    “I see.  I hope she’ll make the right choice, sir.”
    “Yes,” said Holiday, eyes drifting thoughtfully into the distance.  “I hope so too.”
     
    WHEN he left the director’s office, Corey’s plan was to visit Bradley Park’s room.  It couldn’t hurt to talk things over before the mission and try to get on the same page.  He went down the stairs from the front of Holiday’s office to the elevator lobby, and crossed the blue carpet.
    He paused in front of the hallway to the dorms.
    So they were looking for more of a free spirit, were they?  They liked Bradley’s innovation, did they?
    Corey headed for the elevator instead.
     
    “I don’t know about this, Corey.”
    He was in Janice Moeller’s office on the eighth story of GoCom.  Her window faced east across the lake.  In the distance Earth was darkening as night wore on.
    “What is your reason for