by Jon Chaisson
CHAPTER TEN
Sheila
Sheila Kennedy positioned herself flat against the wall outside Nehalé Usarai's apartment, stunstik in hand and a mental strand out for potential hazards — like those two little brats hiding in the stairwell down the hall, waiting for the action to unfold — and plotted out how she and Nick were going to capture Nehalé and bring him in, if he was even here at this point. Rumors had him in all corners of Bridgetown: he and his disciples were already at a warehouse over in the Waterfront, he was seen fraternizing with the Shenaihu in South City, he was hiding with friends in Berndette Corner…he was even sensed around the Mirades Tower again. She didn’t believe any of it, even if they were positive readings. He was too smart to stay in one place; he was also smart enough to leave numerous false trails…including here, in his own apartment. She turned to Nick, who flanked the other side of the doorframe, and pointed at the door.
He nodded and rapped on the door. “…edha Nehalé Usarai?” he called. “Edha Usarai, this is the Alien Relations Unit.” No answer came so he knocked again. He called out, same words as before. Again, a third time, with still no answer. “Huh,” he said. “Indisposed.”
“Up and out, more like it,” she frowned. “Let me check.” She hated doing this, as it always felt like an invasion of privacy, but it was a necessary evil. Out of their four-person team, she was the best at it, even more so than Caren. She pulled off a glove and placed a hand against the door, the weathered wood rings rippling over her fingertips. She felt the coldness within, the feeling of a window left open on a brisk autumn day, and not much else. She listened for a few more seconds, but found nothing.
“Nothing at all?” Nick asked in a whisper.
“Hang on,” she said, more to herself than to Nick. She put the stunstik away, took off her other glove, and put both hands on the door. She closed her eyes, and willfully shut out all extraneous sounds and sensations.
She very nearly missed them, but they were there, hiding way below the surface. The pools of energy had faded, nearly to the point of nonexistence. What she now picked up were the false memories that so often came with any dwelling. They were leftover waves of emotions, life essences, and records of moments that lingered for a while after a person left their dwelling. She concentrated on the most coherent memories and attempted to stir them to life again. It wasn’t too hard, once she knew where and what they were. All they needed was a breath of moving energy. Almost immediately she felt a lift in ambience…Nehalé had been here very recently, probably within the last two hours. Shapes and notions fell away, replaced with more concrete images of the apartment. Slowly all the energies swirled and came together, becoming synchronous and coherent in her mind...
Nehalé Usarai sits in the apartment most days, when he's not at work. He doesn't do much. No vidmats, no sound system, no mediachips. No computers, either. He just sits there, most of the night.
Doing what??
Listening.
He's listening to...something? The Sprawl? No. Wait — yes! He is listening to the Sprawl. Like I'm listening to him. He hears...
No. Can't reach it. He's...he's listening to us? To human life? Why?
Sheila pulled her hands away from the door and opened her eyes, backing away for the moment. Now that she knew where to reach, reconnecting would be easier. She relaxed and turned back to the door.
“What?” he said.
“He’s a Watcher, that’s for certain,” she said. She tested the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked. She waved at Nick to hold just in case, and opened the door, pushing herself against the frame as the door swung open wide. It thudded against the entrance wall, echoing into the apartment. It was not the echo she wanted to hear; it fully reverberated off all the walls, like a voice in a completely bare room. She peered around for a quick look. “I think it's empty,” she muttered.
“You think…?” he said flatly.
“Shut up,” she said, and pointed into the apartment. “You first.”
Nick held his stunstik in hand, and entered quickly and quietly. Sheila glanced down the hall, towards the stairwell, and frowned. The two kids were still there, around the corner, waiting. They were thinking about getting closer to the excitement, as soon as they entered the apartment. That was the last thing she needed.
Get out of here, you little shits! she said within.
The kids responded with sudden yelping and scampering down to the lower floors, culminating with a loud slam of a stairwell door downstairs. Throwing her inner voice was the first Mendaihu trick she'd learned as a novice. She hardly ever used it, but it certainly came in handy when she had to chase people away from a potential crime scene.
“All clear,” Nick said from within the apartment.
She entered the apartment and stopped midstride, surprised and more than a little disturbed by what she saw. The place had been completely emptied out, including all the furniture and appliances. There were fresh scratches on the hardwood floor, and sun-faded outlines on the institutional beige walls, signs that furniture, frames and floor coverings had been there for quite some time, and had been moved just recently. There was one rather large patch of wall in the common area lighter than the rest and outlined by multiple nail holes, which gave the impression that a large widescreen vidmat had once hung there. Other telltale spots revealed shelving units, a mediachip player unit...all contradicting what she'd just sensed outside in the hallway.
“Pashyo,” she huffed. “Not only does the guy vanish with the rest of his crap, he puts a fake cover on it as well. He was stacked with media here.”
Nick hummed in answer. He was pacing around the apartment's perimeter, gloves on and picking up stray pieces of paper or objects that had been left behind. He poked into the back bedroom, the tiny bathroom, and the kitchenette, and found nothing worth keeping. It was all dirt, dust, and paint chips — signs that someone had just recently moved out and the landlord hadn’t yet ordered a quick turnover renovation. He exited the short hallway and entered the main living room again. “What’s the reading inside?” he asked.
She made a quick scan and came up with nothing out of the ordinary. Or more to the point, the reading was exactly the same as the one she’d taken at the door—nothing but memory puddles of what the apartment once looked like, probably not a day ago. Something was out of place here, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint where it was. Nehalé had to have left something that one with her abilities would be able to find. She slowly made a third scan, this time pacing the edges of the apartment. She ignored the physical attributes around her, searching instead for a memory puddle where it wouldn’t normally be. She stopped again after coming full circle, standing almost directly underneath a bare light bulb. She grunted, and moved back to the center of the room, disappointed.
“Maybe I'm just listening to the wrong things,” she said, and closed her eyes—
nuhm’ndah.
The word hit her directly and without warning. It echoed within her soul as a feedback loop and grew in intensity, forcing her backwards and out of the memory puddle. Eyes wide and gasping for air, she dizzily reached out behind her, misjudged her distance from the wall, and hit it hard with the back of her head. She swore again and fell flat against it in an attempt to keep from falling over. The piercing voice vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared, but the pain still lingered.
One word, cleverly hidden, was all it took to incapacitate her, however briefly.
Nick stared at her, keeping his distance and remaining calm, but his eyes full of fear. “What just happened?”
“I...I’m okay,” she managed, barely restraining her anger. Nehalé had violated her spiritual space with that planted word, and she had let it happen because she hadn’t been paying attention. “Everything just suddenly went...cold for a second,” she added. She looked at her hands; they were shaking slightly. She looked at Nick, saw him drop what he had and step quic
kly over to her. She began to waver…not a good sign. She tried pushing off, felt her head begin to spin, and fell back heavily against it, relishing the cold wall against her back. Through the haze of her sudden dizziness, she found focus, and willed herself to return.
“What happened?” he asked again. His hands were held up before him, still ready to catch her. She found his stance unexpectedly amusing; it had just occurred to her that his hands were right about at the same level as her breasts, the first thing he’d come in contact with if she’d fallen forwards instead. Nick was too much of a gentleman to ever let that happen, but the thought struck her as hilarious, and made her giggle even more. “What the hell are you laughing about?” he frowned.
She waved the question away. Why was she laughing? Why had that random thought popped in? Then it occurred to her — Nehalé had probably infused the area around the memory puddle with positive energy, especially just in case of an occasion like this. He wasn’t just an adept, he was a healer as well. “Nehalé's certainly our suspect. I just tripped over a memory puddle he left behind for us.”
Nick mouthed a curse. “At least we know he was here. But that still doesn't prove—”
“We don't need to prove anything here,” she interrupted, frowning. “That wasn't just a random puddle I hit. He put that there on purpose for someone like me to find.”
>chk chk ch-chk<
“Ah, crap,” she grumbled at the hailing of her commlink, and grabbed it from her belt at the same time he went for his. “Yeah, this is Kennedy.”
Dispatch wasted no time filling them in. “We received a call-in about a disturbance in the area of St. Patrick's, possibly inside the church…witnesses are sensing residual spiritual energies and possible conflict.”
She frowned. “Isn’t that Rice and Billiel’s beat?”
“Rice and Billiel are busy at Ormand and West Krieger assisting the Fraserville ARU in breaking up a riot,” they responded. “Inspector Farraway requests you give the church a once-over as you're in the vicinity.”
“A riot in Fraserville?” she blurted. Fraserville was the quietest and most rural district in the city. Hardly anything happened there. “Damn. Don't see that often.”
“We're getting reports it's minor,” Dispatch said. “BMPD's handling most of it.”
Nick frowned at her and motioned at the two of them, mouthing a why us? She waved him off, confirming the request. She signed off and turned to see Nick shaking his head.
“Out with it, Slater,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. Just annoyed, is all.”
Sheila stood her ground. “That ain’t it, Nick. What’s really bothering you? Was it the fact that I damn near fainted because of a memory puddle? Because if it is, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.”
“No…” he said. “It has nothing to do with that. It’s…well, I’m just getting a bad feeling.”
She frowned at him, and began to nudge him towards the door again. “The church?” she said. “Could be a simple B-and-E…it’s a church in the McCleever District, so you can’t always take the spirit signatures too seriously.”
“This early in the afternoon?” he said, and checked his watch as they left. “No…they’d still have an open door right now. Most of the churches around here do. But a disturbance at the church and a riot in Fraserville? Maybe it’s just me, but this just doesn’t feel right.”
“I feel that way all the damned time,” she said as she closed the door, pulled out the security sealant glue and made a quick spray of the outline of the door. She tested the door by turning the knob and pushing against it; the glue had sealed it shut, refusing to budge. Pocketing the spray can, she followed him down the hall.
