Snippet #2816043

Andrijana finally spoke again, nodding as she rose from the table. "Yes, of course, I certainly don't mean to keep you," she said. "If you head out from the administration building, you can depart through the main gates, which I'm assuming is how you arrived earlier too. You'll just head back downstairs to the lobby - the elevator's still broken, unfortunately, but it's just down one floor at least." The goddamned elevator had been broken the day Andrijana had arrived, over ten years ago, and it had never been fixed. Budget shortage. A suspiciously larger budget shortage with each passing year. "I hope this has been ... well. Glad I could help." She sounded a bit dubious, though she was doing her best to be polite and courteous as the ostensible host of this impromptu meeting.

The old woman watched the others carefully, her eyes tracking each of them as they stood from the table too. Until she could convince someone in medical to finally approve the request for a cane, she'd need help. She could stand on her own, but she needed her hands free, unencumbered of the handcuffs, to do that. And she'd need her knees to stop screaming internally at her, which was the bigger problem most days since Andrade had unleashed his fury on her. She'd made the mistake of trying to escape that basement with its mildew and blood from women who had been like daughters. They were all her daughters, really, her daughters, her sons, her children, every one of the Terrans she'd sacrificed a lifetime to protect and defend. And as with her own children, the children of her blood, they'd now abandoned her.