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"What have they got you doing, Sal?" I asked.
"Bookwork. Lessons. Every now and then, I get a slot on the flight simulator."
"They won't get rid of our Novitiates," Bryan said with conviction. "It'd be a waste of what money's already been put into your trainin'. They wanna expand, eventually. To expand, we'll need new Interns. No point starting with a fresh bunch of Novitiates when you've got a group already halfway through the course work already."
"Makes sense," said Rafe, but I thought, perhaps, they were both just trying to placate Sally. There was nothing stopping Anderson from letting the Novitiates go, with a promise to contact them first when RATS started hiring again. He'd lose some to other job opportunities, but most would wait eagerly for a chance to sign up again.
Time travel was addictive like that.
"What does Anderson want?" I said into the too-long silence that had followed that. I guess, no one else here fully believed what Bryan and Rafe were selling, either.
"He wants to make RATS profitable," Bryan said. "That's what Jack's workin' on, right?"
I nodded. "It's not going to happen overnight, though, is it?"
"That's why we're worryin' about staff layoffs, Mouse," Bryan countered.
"Just hear me out," I said. "What other ways could we ease the financial burden? What could Sally and the Novitiates do to help Anderson and give us all some time? Not sit in a classroom and read textbooks," I pointed out. "There has to be something Sal can do that makes her useful to that twit and his overlords and won't get her fired."
"Gee, thanks," she muttered.
"You know what I mean, Sal," I said. She offered me a smile. A normal smile. I didn't realise until then how much I had needed to see that.
Sally and I were still okay. Our little misunderstanding and Harding's and Pratt's efforts hadn't undermined that. I didn't think they ever could, but it had hurt to see my friend in such pain.
"Play to your talents, Sally," Rafe said.
"I haven't got any," she immediately replied.
"I think you do, Novitiate," Rafe countered, and then nodded toward her tablet computer. As usual, it was resting on her lap, screen activated in case Sally needed to look up something, or tweak something, or simply do whatever it was that Sally liked to do in the depths of the RATS' computer system.
"Um..." Sal said.
"You're good at packagin' stuff," Dean offered.
"Anyone can package up a flight's reports and camera feeds and module readouts," she said.
"But you do more than that, Sal. You always do that overview thing. You know, sum it all up and throw in a few animations. That kind of thing. I seen you do it, so don't deny you've got a flair for presentation or anythin'. I really liked the way you did that flight to Jerusalem. How you did a voiceover on the video feed to point out historical facts and things."
"Was that your presentation, Sally?" Rafe asked. "I always thought Bryan had done that and got you to do the voiceover 'cause no one understands his 'gator boy accent."
It must have been before my time because I had no recollection of it, but clearly, it had left an impression on Rafe and Dean. I looked at Bryan, who was watching Sally closely, his eyes were narrowed slightly as if he had no recollection of the presentation either.
Our universe and his universe had not been exact duplicates.
I looked back at Sally and saw the heartache of her memories resurface.
"What about doing historical packs with contemporary footage and offering them up for sale to the public?" I said. I really just wanted everyone moving on and not staring too hard at Sally.
But the idea had merit, and everyone enthusiastically made comments.
"That's it!" Dean said.
"Brilliant, Mouse!"
"Start with Jerusalem."
"Tell Anderson it's a hobby, but you're willin' to head up a new Division for it if he likes."
