Alex West watched Kaiser slowly drift over towards him. Hawk had left just a few minutes before. She probably wasn’t even at her own airport yet. Too bad. Without her to prod, Kaiser was going to have to think up a new way to annoy Alex. And it looked like he’d found it; he seemed intent as he advanced towards Alex’s table.

"Hello, " Willheim said. He loomed over Alex like some kind of bad prayer.

Alex’s inner con-artist perked up quite a bit. This might even be fun. "Mr. Willheim. What can I do for you?"

"You're going home to your wife, today I presume? I know she just left, but there seemed a bit of friction between you two. I assume something happened while you were fucking on that poor woman's desk?" Kaiser said, his face schooled into a mask of perfect civility. He made the word “fucking” into a stain.

Gotcha, Alex thought. "Had a little spat. Married people do that sort of thing." He did his best to sound put upon, tired. A martyr to his own marriage. Meanwhile he mentally promised Hawk he’d make up for this. It felt filthy, but it felt…necessary. People with a martyr complex are easy to manipulate, and if Kaiser didn't know how to act on that he was a bigger sucker than Alex had initially thought.

"Ah. Well, I was hoping you knew where she was taking that little artifact you found in the gorilla's skull. Round. Pearlescent. It's got a bullet hole in it. Ring any bells?" Kaiser smiled down at Alex.

Swallowed the bait, my man. Alex thought quickly and came up with a decent lie. "It's what we fought about. I told her to leave it in the zoo, that you were better equipped to deal with that sort of thing, but you must know Hawk by now, Kaiser. She doesn't listen, even when she ought to."

I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. He'd fix this, first by telling her he'd done it and then by giving her something extravagant, like a new ant Queen, or maybe some expensive new boots. Maybe he’d take her out somewhere beautiful, where she could dance and be radiant. He’d do whatever it took to wipe the stain of Kaiser Willheim off her life. But it worked. Kaiser read him and swallowed that whole too. In fact, it was very interesting how Kaiser seemed to jump on the idea of him and Hawk being at odds. Almost as if he'd wanted their relationship to fragment.

"Well. I'm sure that she has her reasons.” Said Kaiser, the Lion of Industry. “Would you call her and ask where the damned orb is so I can get that down to the lab boys?"

"I could, but she won't answer. She never does, when we're fighting." He leaned forward a bit, creating the illusion of an intimate space.

"Indeed, indeed," Kaiser said. "Women, am I right?"

Ugh. The misogyny dripping off every word made him want to vomit. Even worse was having to play pretend with the asshole. "I don't know," he said, because it wouldn't look too good if he agreed with everything Kaiser said. Would it make sense for him to recommend Kaiser speak with her? He'd immediately try to drive a wedge in between them, if he gave Kaiser this opening. Yeah, he decided. Hawk knew he was playing games with the man; she was playing her own games too. If Kaiser called and sympathized with her, she'd catch on that he was being conned, and given how much she detested Kaiser, she'd play along if only to make sure the sting burned him, bad. And asking Kaiser to speak to Hawk on his behalf would present a weak side for Kaiser to dig into. Yeah. That'd work just fine. "Maybe you could call her? She might listen to you more than me, right now."

But that wasn't what Kaiser wanted. This was an excuse. If Alex had done his job right, he'd just goaded Kaiser into asking the real question.

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"Now," Kaiser said, and Alex knew he'd landed the fish, alright. "There's something I'm a bit...concerned about. You've had a lot of Glass exposure—more than anyone else in the Project—which means you are an invaluable subject. If we want to get ahead of this shit, if we want to give people a chance to survive Events, we need to understand how this substance from the honeypots is shielding you. If we can synthesize it..." he trailed off.

Alex took a chance to try and get a prize for Hawk. "You know, is that big Queen of yours still alive?"

A flare of interest sparked in Kaiser's eyes. "It is. But my people say they have no idea how to keep her that way. They've put food and water in the enclosure—"

Alex groaned. He'd been around Hawk long enough to know what a critical mistake that was. "No, no, no, no. Honeypot Queens are what Hawk calls claustral. They mate, pop off their wings, dig a hole, plug up the entrance, and stay in there with no food or water, save for what they can collect in the dirt, until they get their first workers. And they need to be undisturbed. Otherwise they'll freak out and eat their eggs." The very large number of times Hawk had gotten irate with him for disturbing her test tubes had driven that lesson home.

Kaiser looked almost crestfallen. "I should give it to her, shouldn't I?"

"I mean...she's had enough experience and papers published on the subject that she was annoyed the Bronx Zoo didn't contact her for advice when they got their colonies. If you can raise this Queen to maturity, that's one hell of an upgrade over the teeny tinies we've got right now."

"Well, then. I'll have it brought to her. I'll even advocate for you. Most husbands bring their wives roses, but—"

Alex didn't—couldn't—let him finish. "Hawk doesn't hate roses, but she's real particular about them. She does hate red ones. She likes lilies better, and wildflower bouquets best of all." She thought he hadn't noticed it, how she got ten times brighter over a bouquet of blanket flowers and paintbrush than she ever did over store-bought flowers.

"Oh," Kaiser said, and looked genuinely crestfallen. "Well. Anyway, that's not why I came over here. We'd like to get a sample of your blood...and a spinal tap."

Alex blinked. "A spinal tap?" he repeated.

"We want to make sure your brain isn't showing signs of Glass related degradation."

Alex felt like a cat who had just gotten shocked, all puffed out and on edge. "So you want me to let you and your cronies stick a needle in my backbone." And his tone made it clear his answer was a provisional no. He was going to need to be bribed. And it's going to be one hell of a big bribe.

"What do you want, West?" Kaiser asked, and now he sounded tired.

Time to go all or nothing. He threw his former plans to the wind. "I want a direct flight to Bittermoss School in Boston. I want to be there before they break for the day." It was just now ten o'clock in the morning. Not that huge of an ask, getting from New York City to Boston before 3pm. Not when you were speaking to a billionaire with his own helicopter fleet.

And now Kaiser's smile was mercenary. "You want to talk to Edgar's family, don't you."

"Have you?" Alex said. “They were closest to the man. They’d know what was on his mind before he went off the rails.”

"Yes. I have spoken with them. When this all began. Naomi is…crestfallen. She is aware of what her husband has done, and is fairly distraught over it all. Plus…she just lost a daughter. Amelie Studdard—you know of her, yes? How she has ALS? Lou Gherig's Disease?" He waited for Alex to nod, even though he had to know goddamn well Alex had already researched Studdard quite thoroughly. "She died several months ago. Right about when her father went ‘off the rails’, as you put it, for good. The only thing Naomi has, right now, is her school. Her husband is a…fugitive. She's been through quite a lot." He sighed, and there was a long pause. “So I’ll find a way to bring you to her, but in return, I want you to be…gentle. Be aware of her grief, and don’t hurt her. Park that aggression for a few minutes. Give her space, give her time, that whole drill.”

Alex nodded. He was highly, deeply suspicious of that pause, however. It hadn't struck him as Kaiser trying to break bad news. It struck him as Kaiser remembering there was something he did not want Alex to know about. And he didn't much like that. But he couldn't back down now. "I'll treat her the way I would Hawk. Can you let her know I'd like to speak with her?"

"Absolutely. Come on upstairs, we'll get this pesky little spinal tap done, and then you can go catch your flight." And Kaiser walked away, pausing only once to look back. "Well? Come on, man."

And Alex felt he had no choice but to follow.