by Lan Chan
“Better to be thought of as crazy than dangerous,” Adam said.
“Or uncooperative,” Zeke interjected.
“I’ll give them uncooperative!” I hiccupped into his shirt. He took my anger as a sign I was improving.
“Eat something.” Adam placed the tray on my lap. He checked his watch for the time.
“Go,” I said. “You’re already late for your shift. I’ll be alright.”
“I’ll stay with her,” Oz said.
Zeke frowned when he felt my reluctance through the link. After what just happened, Oz was the last person I wanted to be around. I wanted my Aunt Jenny. Or any other Void mind that was completely impervious to mine. One I couldn’t hurt because I accidentally lost control.
Instead, Zeke and Adam left and I sat up on the bed and chewed through a chicken schnitzel roll, a pile of thickly cut chips, a banana, and two apples. Suddenly a dutiful guard, Oz sat in the chair beside the bed without making a sound. Occasionally our eyes would meet and then I’d turn away.
I was tempted to call Bianca and have her pick me up. But she had her own night shift to contend with, and I had a feeling Oz was going to hang around like a bad smell.
It was a little bit late to be concerned about my well-being.
When we had first joined Hyper, Oz was the first one to reach out to me. At the time, I was completely in awe of his maturity and self-control. I’d been an arrogant kid with too much power—still was at heart—but he’d looked out for me nonetheless. Now I watched him with shuttered eyes and couldn’t help wondering if, at any time in the future, I’d feel guilty that I was born with abilities that made things easier for me.
Somehow I doubted it. While we both had esper abilities, he also had the disadvantage of a privileged upbringing and a multi-billion-dollar company bearing his name. Oz took the guilt thing to the extreme. No wonder he was Hyper and not an executive in his family’s company. There was no telling what a Reader of his abilities could do for company profits.
Oz glanced at his watch. “Do you think you’re feeling up to going home?”
“If you’ve got work to do, I can catch the bus.” As pathetic as it sounded, taking public transport home this last month while Adam and Zeke had been reassigned to another shift was kind of peaceful.
My curfew was still iron-clad, but half an hour on the bus gave me time alone with my thoughts before Lily pounced on me with her endless questions and Rich pored over my shift report like he was grading a paper. Nobody trusted Moore to be a mentor and yet I was stuck with the bastard.
“I think I better make sure you get home safely. There’s nothing more I can do until the agents contact me about a reading or until another incident happens.”
“Agent Flynn is a Reader.” I sat up and filled another glass with cordial. “He should be able to do most of what you can do without your help.”
He nodded and the first hint of a smile tugged at his lips. I offered him the glass. The way he watched me as he took it and drank was slightly unnerving. At least there was some colour back in his cheeks.
The warmth that normally radiated from Oz’s clear blue eyes was a blinding contrast to Flynn’s wintery gaze. “People don’t like him, do they?” I said. “He can read them but they resist because he makes them feel uncomfortable. So it’s easier to send you in there to ask them for what they need.”
“He’s not a bad person. Just a bit direct in his approach.”
“He’s an asshole.”
I got that warning glance again. The one they gave me like they were surprised that I cursed even though I’d grown up amongst the worst criminals. My friend Nina, who worked for Gabe, could really let fly with curses that would make the most hardened criminal turn red. Thinking about her gave me an idea.
“Gabe’s really not talking to me about this. He gets all jumpy when stuff is esper related.”
The one time Gabe had asked for my help, Edward Blake had tried to corner me into joining them permanently. It was the first and last time I’d ever seen Gabe go against one of Blake’s orders.
It resulted in a standoff between them that ended with me threatening Blake. He’d laughed it off and let the whole thing go, thinking I was still too immature to understand how the world really worked.
But I knew. I’ve known the way of men like him since I was a child living on the outskirt towns on the border between New China and Australia. Gabe understood what my threat had meant. That if it came down to it, I would take down the City Square Street King to keep him safe and I wouldn’t lose a second of sleep doing it. At my core, I was my mother’s daughter. Now any time something like this happened, Gabe went radio silent and shut me out.
“I do know other people, though. The wrong kind of people, as you’ve said before, who could probably help us. But it’s got to be off record. Just because they’re not exactly law-abiding doesn’t mean they don’t deserve loyalty.”
He frowned at my suggestion. “I can’t keep doing things off record. How am I going to explain where I got the information from?”
I shrugged. “I can only get us an in. I can’t come up with miracles too. Maybe you should talk to a lawyer about that. Or you could use that Hoffman charm to ask their permission to put them on the record. You’re the senior officer, Mr. Hoffman.”
In the end, he didn’t have much of a choice. We were in the parking lot ready to drive off before he asked for a destination. “You know the club Happy Endings?”
He almost choked. “That’s a strip club. I can’t take you to a strip club.”
“Relax. Everybody knows nothing happens in the clubs until at least ten o’clock. Where did you think we were going to go? The park?”
“If Rich finds out, he’s going to kill us both.”
“So don’t tell him.”
“He’s our commanding officer.”
“Yes, but you almost got me locked up today, so make with the driving.”
He shook his head and eased the cruiser out of the gates, muttering something under his breath about blackmail. We got stopped at the door, of course. Happy Endings was on the opposite side of City Square to the Rendezvous Hotel. The seedier side where all the businesses that didn’t care to pretend that they were legitimate were located. It was so far on the outskirts it was almost part of the Row.
The bouncer looked us both up and down. Oz because he was in uniform and me because I looked extremely underage. Skimming the man’s head, I felt the uncharacteristic tug of disgust. From the gist of his thoughts, he believed Oz was a bent Academy officer leading me astray. I gave him a bright smile.
“Hi. I’m a friend of Nina’s. Could you let her know I’m here?” If he was surprised, he didn’t show it.
“Show me some ID.”
We produced our Hyper identification. He let out a grizzly cough when he read the date of birth on mine but said no more and announced to someone inside that there were two Academy officers coming to see Nina. Stepping aside, he unlatched the velvet rope. I had to turn my head not to laugh at the way his eyes narrowed as Oz walked in ahead of me.
Very funny, Oz sent me. I don’t appreciate his speculation.
I like him.
You’re not the one he’s planning to tackle.
We stopped in the small waiting area next to the coat check. Happy Endings was one of many such clubs along the street, but it had a reputation for living up to its name. Prostitution was legal in the city but the girls who danced here weren’t prostitutes. They just knew how to make the most of what they were given. Or in Nina’s case, what they could disguise.
Once, Moore pulled her up because she was taking a leak in the alleyway behind the club and wasn’t being very discreet about it. I reckon he was more pissed off that he’d been ogling her before it dawned on him that she was transgender.
“Well look what the cat dragged in!” Nina said from the top of the stairs that led to the change rooms. Even in the low lighting, the sequins on her baby-pink flapper dress glittered
. “Come on up!”
To his credit, Oz didn’t react when we strolled past Nina into her change room and she was both taller and had a bigger Adam’s apple than him. She shared a room with a pair of other girls who made themselves scarce after giving Oz the once-over and smiling suggestively.
“What’s that smell?” She waved her hand in the air in front of her face. I hadn’t thrown up anything but bile when I was sick, but it had landed on the front of my shirt.
“Err, I had a bit of an accident earlier.”
“You don’t say.” She sprayed perfume at my chest. The heady scent of tuberoses and citrus made me gag.
“This is infinitely worse.”
“For you maybe, but the rest of us are the ones suffering. Anybody want a drink?”
I shook my head and Oz did the same. I introduced them.
Oz couldn’t help staring at the size of Nina’s hands as they shook his. She’d told me once that even if she went through gender reassignment, you could always tell by looking at someone’s hands. Her nails were painted a very bright red. They were like targets against her fawn skin.
“Aren’t you adorable,” she said about Oz. “Much better than that slug you’ve been getting about with, Will.” She motioned for us to take seats on the chairs facing the mirrors. The glass took up the bottom half of the wall with hooks above where the dancers hung their boas and ties and other props.
“Don’t even get me started,” I snorted. “He burped in my face today. I was this close to knocking him out.” I made a pinching gesture with my thumb and forefinger.
Her laughter was rich and throaty with masculine undertones. Smoothing her fingers over her throat, she glanced sideways at me.
“I’m going to assume by the uniform that this isn’t a social visit.” She lifted an orange cocktail from the dressing table and took a sip.
Do you want to take the lead? I asked Oz.
She’s your friend. I think we’re better off keeping it unofficial unless something comes up that can’t be ignored.
“You know this Second Sight business that’s been going about?” I asked. “Have you heard anything about where it might be coming in from? Have any of the Kings of other gangs taken responsibility for it?”
She swallowed the rest of the drink before setting the glass down. “Phew. You don’t do things by halves, do you? What’s the matter? Gabriel not talking to you?”
I never told her Gabe was my godfather, but like Flynn said, the underworld talked to each other. Most of the time it was a pain in my ass because almost nobody would go against Gabe’s orders. But if there was one thing I knew about Nina, it was that she didn’t like to be intimidated. In another lifetime, she’d been a standover man herself.
“He’s being stubborn again. Probably thinks I’m still just a kid.”
“News flash. You are a kid. Dave’s already given me strict orders that you’re not allowed to go anywhere but in here and out again. As much as I want to help, even I can’t go against the wishes of the Captain.”
My patience with Gabe’s overbearing protectiveness was starting to run out. “Alright, then don’t think of it as going against his wishes. You must have your own ideas about where this stuff is coming from. It can’t have just appeared one day.”
The way Nina’s nostrils flared, I had a feeling she had plenty of assumptions. Her eyes darted to Oz and I could see without scanning her that she wasn’t comfortable with him.
“He’s the best you’re ever going to get authority-wise,” I told her.
“Academy or Court,” she said to me. The perpetual tug of allegiance. There were things both sides did better and worse, but at the moment, I was officially Academy and right now I wanted to know what was happening.
“You’re making it sound like they’re mutually exclusive. Are you saying that the Kings are behind the S2?”
She hunched forward, big hands clasped in front of her. “If you wanted to read my mind right now, you could, couldn’t you?” She was referring to Oz. Rather than deny it, he nodded. “I’m a Basic, though.”
He spoke honestly, which was something that always endeared him to people. “I’m an alpha. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Basic or not. Only the Voids are impervious to me.”
“So why don’t you just read my mind?”
“Believe it or not, I don’t make it a habit of invading someone’s privacy just because I can.”
She shook her head. “You know what, cutie? I believe you.” She turned to me then, “The espers that work for the Kings don’t have any of those qualms. They’ve run amok unchecked for decades. And then here comes this drug that means people can shield themselves. Better than any anti-psi cuff because it can even give non-espers telepathic powers. Do you think the Kings want this to happen?”
I nodded my understanding. “The balance of power is shifting and the Kings are nervous. Which means that they’re not the ones who are running the drug.”
“I didn’t say that. I’m just saying there’s less incentive for them.”
“Unless they’re planning to use it to topple another King,” Oz noted. “Which of the Kings has the most esper firepower right now?”
Nina and I exchanged a glance. The Academy could never get a real grasp of the ebb and flow of the power struggles that went on between the Kings. Allegiances changed all the time. Money and espers. These were the two most essential keys to maintaining territory. There was no doubt that Edward Blake and Ricky Wong had the most money. Edward had control of the most lucrative territory and Ricky looked after the city’s richest in Kew Gardens. As for esper firepower?
“The Slums,” Nina said.
“Really?” Oz replied. “No one’s even seen the Shadowman in over two years.” I bit my tongue so I didn’t contradict him. Nina shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. He might not be flashy, but with all the espers flocking to the Hoffman and Kaur Pharmaceutical laboratories, the concentration of espers is much denser. People are afraid of the Kings here, but they know they’re alright if they’re paid up. The Kings will uphold their end of the bargain. The Shadowman doesn’t care about money. Nobody knows what his motives are. And he has Spectra.”
I gagged and then tried to cover it up with a cough. “He doesn’t have Spectra.”
“Doesn’t he? There’s been more Spectra activity in the Slums than there’s been in the rest of the whole city.”
“Still, that’s not exactly conclusive.”
Again, she shrugged. “Whatever. Even if it’s not true, it’s assumed. Spectra protects the Row. Which means she protects the Shadowman. Some even say Spectra is the Shadowman.” This was getting out of hand now.
“Leaving aside the speculation,” Oz said, “nobody seems to know where the drug is being shipped in from. The checkpoints have all been secured and the Docks are being monitored. So is the airport. We haven’t found anything.”
Nina smiled then. Her face softened when she did and it became less angular, her thick jaw taking on curves. “What does that tell you? It’s not coming from the air, the water, or by land.”
“They can’t be manufacturing it here!” Oz said.
“Can’t they? It’s been done before.”
“Someone would have noticed that.”
I thought of something then. “Completely off record, what does it taste like?” She eyed me warily. “Don’t pretend you haven’t had any! Enough people go through here that someone’s bound to have had some on them.” When she didn’t answer, I prodded her with a finger on the kneecap.
She wiggled away. “You’re asking a lot.”
“I told you that when we first met.”
“I assumed you meant you wanted me to go straight. Not be a rat!”
“How is this ratting? If anyone asks, tell them we coerced you into it.”
“Actually, coerced information isn’t admissible in court,” Oz said.
Nina’s face turned stiff. “Nobody said anything about court.”
&n
bsp; “You’re not helping.” I eyed him off.
“We’re Academy,” he objected. “We can only do so much off the record.”
“Then I guess we’re done here,” Nina said. I knew she was right. We weren’t going to get anything else from her. If I were in her position, I’d feel the same way. She’d given us more than anyone else would have.
As we reached the bottom of the staircase, Nina tapped my shoulder lightly. “Watch yourself,” she whispered. “Some of the ones getting abilities from S2, they’re not taking kindly to real espers. It might have great side effects but it’s still essentially a drug. It messes with the brain and makes them dangerous.”
I smiled at her. “I’ll keep that in mind. If Gabe comes around and hassles you, send him my way.”
She closed the door with a wry smile. Dave watched us until we were back out on the street and out of his club. We were quiet on the way home. It was after eight by now and the after-work traffic had died off. It only took fifteen minutes to get back to Hyper. Rich and Lily were waiting for us in the kitchen. We’d missed dinner but I assumed Oz had called in earlier to tell them we’d be late. Whether he’d told them about where we were going was another matter altogether.
Over dinner, Lily kept staring at me. As soon as Rich got up to leave the table, she leaned over and dropped a piece of folded-up paper in front of me.
Opening it up, I found yet another piece of paper with the Psi-Ops logo on it. I recognized it as my file. Zooming in on the part that she’d highlighted, I saw the block lettering just under the photo of me that they’d gotten from my Psi-Q exam. A black notice. They’d upgraded my status. Son of a bitch.
12
I passed Oz the paper under the table. He rubbed the bridge of his nose when he saw it. Rich came back in with dessert. He cooked on Monday nights, though I didn’t consider take-out Chinese and ice cream cooking. Bloody double standards. Before I could consider the consequences, I spoke.
“Rich.” He peered at me. Our relationship had never been easy. He was one of my mum’s best friends before she disappeared. I’d grown up in the shadow of some powerful men. Unlike Mum, Rich had always been on the straight and narrow path.
