Kori looked at the two things Lay was offering - the warped reader in one open palm, the empty hand in the other - and made her decision the way she made most of them, faster than it looked.
She took the reader first.
The weight of it surprised her. It was heavier than it looked, and the warp went deeper than the surface: there was a faint wrongness to it in the hand, a density that the casing's size didn't account for, like it had taken on something it shouldn't have been able to survive or resist. She turned it around a few times, found no obviovious flaw in it – other than the strange warping - and slid it into the inner pocket of her coat without comment. Whatever it was, it was hers now. She would understand it later, somewhere quieter, with the right tools and Alteea next to her.
Then she took Lay's hand and shook it.
