“That’s great,” Cordelia said. “I thought he was going to quit after that.”
“It was a near thing. That’s the only time he said the truth was worse than the lies. He still sometimes has nightmares, but he says he’s glad he stayed in the public sector.”
“It’s an odd sort of magick,” Cordelia observed.
“Truth-tellers are a rarity, that’s for sure. Mike says there’s a greasy taste to the bespelled liar that he finds hard to take. But really, all lies cause him some sort of discomfort. I’m just glad he’s at the DOJ, even if he’s doing projects for other agencies. Much, much better than the FBI.”
“Is there that much of a difference? I got the sense from what he was telling Amy at Thanksgiving that there are a lot of similarities between the different agencies.”
“The people, yes. The type of cases, no. There’s a huge difference. But even the FBI is a lot better than CIA.”
Cordelia shuddered. “I don’t think I could have handled listening to the Naturalists. What we saw on the news was almost too much.”
“That kind of work is too much for anyone but a psycho. It doesn’t matter how heroic the agents are when they sign up, being surrounded by that kind of evil takes a toll. You know, all the guys who worked with Mike on that left the agency too? I wish he’d go back into private practice. The pay was a lot better, and the topics so much less stressful. But I guess as long as he’s happy …” Mary shrugged and finished her slice.
“And not with the CIA,” Cordelia added, and Mary nodded her agreement. “Well, I couldn’t do what he does, but then, I think he’d hate your job and you’d hate mine. We’d all hate Amy’s.”
Mary chuckled. “I have to tell her we had lunch here. She’ll get a kick out of it. I should have brought her here last time she visited. Food’s good, too. I mean, not bad for D.C. pizza.”
“It’s so close to the Cathedral, I’m surprised you never came in here.”
“I’ll probably come back now. I go to the sandwich place around the corner almost every day. I guess I’m a creature of habit.”
“Well, I’m glad to shake things up.”
“Why do you have to hurry back so fast? At least stay and have dinner with Mike and me.”
“I can’t. Really. I should have left earlier in the week, but things just took a bit longer than I expected.”
“Are you going to publish some more photos?” Mary asked.
“Probably.” Cordelia shrugged.
Both her sisters thought she was an underwater photographer. She did take pictures from time to time. Even without using compulsions, it was fairly easy to get them published — the ocean always showed her interesting things. She really ought to take some photos in the Mediterranean. Or the Black Sea; there were some really stunning shipwrecks preserved in its low-oxygen waters.
But what Cordelia really wanted to do was visit Yorkshire on her way back to Queen Sophia’s court. Despite numerous phone calls since Thomas’ abrupt departure, he had still not been very forthcoming about the situation. Cordelia was now free to see for herself; visiting Mary had been less of a chore than she’d anticipated, but she was glad to finally be back on track.
Well, it had been nice to see Cordelia. She looked different somehow, but Mary couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
She seemed to have adjusted to her new project fairly well, though. Cordy had been pretty depressed at Thanksgiving; even Amy had noticed it, and Amy was not exactly observant when it came to people’s feelings. While Cordy seemed preoccupied today, she didn’t seem nearly as unhappy.
Mary’s cellphone rang; it was Mike. She suspected he was calling to tell her he was going to be late. “What’s up?” Mary asked.
“I owe you two compliments today. I haven’t forgotten.” Mary had to smile. When they’d started dating, she’d had the nerve to tell him she expected at least two compliments a day, and that if he couldn’t think of at least two honest compliments about her on any day, they shouldn’t be dating. Twenty-five years had faded her mandate somewhat, and he said that to make her smile. Yup, he was definitely running late.
“I’m going to be late.” Mary was right.
“Why don’t you just meet me at the restaurant?” Mary suggested. She’d gotten them reservations at one of Mike’s favorite restaurants in Penn Quarter.
“I’ll still be late,” Mike warned.
“Should I change the reservation?” Mary knew better than to ask why he was going to be late again. Never ask a question unless you were prepared for an honest answer, especially with truth-tellers: their inability to gloss over unpleasant truths was the reason most got divorced before their first anniversary.
“If you can push it back maybe a half-hour, that would be better.”
“Okay. I’ll text you the time.”
“Love you,” Mike said.
“Love you too,” Mary responded, and hung up.
Dating Mike had required some adjustments, but it had helped that even before they met, she’d avoided polite lies. Maybe that had been her mother’s influence. Mom would just tell the church ladies that she wasn’t going to help with the bake sale, not that she was too busy or that she wished she could. She just said no.
Mary might not get two compliments a day anymore, but she loved that she could rely on Mike’s truthfulness. He never pretended to be anything he wasn’t; he never told her he loved her performance if he didn’t. But he did like most of them, and she never felt insecure about his love for her.
She flipped on the TV for background while she got ready. When Mike was around, they didn’t watch TV. While audio-visual recordings didn’t have the same effect as in-person lying, any form of pretense grated on him. The evening news was on, and it just kind of flowed over Mary in a vague wave. She was tired of the never-ending cycle of politicians condemning the Djinn Dictator and blaming him for everything — from the same human rights violations they’d been talking about when she was a kid, to his new ban on silica-salt exports.
So some magical products like air conditioners and garbage disintegrators cost a lot more now than they did two years ago. Didn’t they skim silica-salt in the Mojave and Chihuahuan deserts? At this point, the embargo seemed like a thin excuse for the enclaves to charge more for their already expensive products. Mary was only half-listening while trying to pick out which dress to wear, but her attention was caught when she heard her sister’s name.
“… said Dr. Amy Bant, a neurologist at Harvard University at a press conference this afternoon.” Mary turned to look at the TV and saw the camera cut to a shot of her sister sitting behind a table next to Dr. Eisner and two other men in white coats. The Harvard University Hospital banner hung behind them. Dr. Eisner looked a lot older than Mary remembered; but then, he had to be pushing eighty now. Maybe that was why Amy was doing the talking.
“Magical energy exists in the form of white light, which mundanes perceive as brightness. But as we know, the color white is actually a combination of colors, and mages are able to perceive white light in close to its true full-color spectrum. This visual perception is known as mage sight or magical vision.”
Amy spoke authoritatively and calmly, despite the flash of numerous cameras in her face. She didn’t look particularly pleased at being the center of attention, but also didn’t seem unhappy or nervous either. She explained how her team had done the first comparison mapping of mage and mundane brains and had successfully given a mundane mage sight through nerve grafts.
She had already told the family this much at Thanksgiving, and Mary wondered why she was doing a press conference about it now. Perhaps this was some kind of academic one-upmanship. Research into magical capabilities had been going on for years, but mostly in genetics; finding the magick genome had been on the cover of Time a year or so ago. Mary had only bought the magazine because she wanted to have something besides the kids to talk to Amy about.
A dark-haired man asked Amy the first question. “Dr. Bant, are you saying
that mundanes are disabled because they lack this ‘sub-optic’ nerve?”
“No. It’s simply a biological fact that mages have functioning sub-optic nerves and mundanes do not,” her sister replied calmly.
That reporter was a jerk, Mary thought. Amy should have asked him whether he thought men were disabled because they had nipples, but couldn’t lactate.
A woman with shellacked blond hair and an emaciated frame stood up next. “Do you think creating more mages is a wise idea? Isn’t that dangerous?”
Mary shook her head. So many mundanes fretted over the number of mages around. But everyone knew most mages didn’t have all that much power.
Look at how they hid away in their enclaves, terrified of another set of pogroms. Or worse, kidnapping by the Natural Order. Mary doubted there were enough strong mages in the whole world to control the United States. Sure, there was the Djinn Dictator, and the Cabal had run Australia for over a century, but really powerful mages were rare. Every now and again, a mage usurper had overthrown a small country’s government. But those were tiny tin pot countries, where the brief rebellions were typically preceded by instability and upheaval. And really, what was the difference between a mage-led coup and an army-led coup anyway?
Mary picked up her phone to send a quick text congratulating Amy. Then she texted Thomas and Cordelia telling them that Amy had just been on TV. She started to remind them to call Amy, but deleted that part of her text; they should know that’s what they were supposed to do. Mary put down her phone, then picked it back up. She sent a quick text to Thomas suggesting he call Amy. Better safe than sorry.
Amy had handled the press conference like a pro; Mary knew she didn’t do this very often. She didn’t lose her temper, even with those ridiculous questions. Still, Amy’s project must be a big deal if the networks were covering it this much — and why hadn’t Amy told her she was going to be on TV?
She figured she could always ask Amy when they next spoke; she still had to change their reservation.
Aphrodite was allegedly blessed with a form of magical synesthesia, where she both heard and saw magick. Similarly, Morgan le Fay also sensed magick through sound as well as sight. Some speculate that this form of magical perception is related to their ability to draw power from the ocean, as well as through light and silica.
– Sirens: An Overview for the Newly-Transitioned, 3rd ed. (2015), by Mira Bant de Atlantic, p. 15.
Chapter 22
“So we shift our focus onto other projects. You’ve been fairly clear about this for a while. I’m just not comfortable handing over all of our proprietary research to another lab or group of researchers that I don’t know. I’m more than happy to authorize a joint project.” Eli paused on the phone, listening.
Amy hovered in Eli’s waiting room; he hadn’t closed his office door all the way, and she’d been about to knock when she noticed he was on the phone. Eli probably didn’t realize she was there, and she knew he didn’t realize how loudly he was talking. Amy had been trying to get him to see an otologist to get his hearing checked for years now.
“I’ve told you before that this is not the same as infrared. If you want to explore a type of night-vision-like goggles for magick, we can’t follow the same path. I can’t imagine any reputable physicist would give you different advice.”
Amy listened to the conversation with a knot in her gut. Both before and after yesterday’s press conference, Amy had tried to elicit more information from the DoD. But they had been assiduously elusive. While Eli had been a little more forthcoming, she was still in the dark. All she’d been able to get out of Eli was that the Danjou Enclave was considering pulling out of the project. Without Danjou support, they might not be able to proceed.
You think you prepare for the worst, but no amount of preparation can actually alleviate the shock of the moment when the worst happens. Her project was over. This whole week she’d tried to come up with a hook to bring the Danjou back on board, but now she wouldn’t even get the chance to try any of her gambits. Amy cursed the mages again. Neither Ted nor anyone at the enclave was picking up the phone. How do you argue with someone who won’t even speak to you? She’d refused to believe they could let their hard work go to waste. Not now, when they knew how to correct all the side effects from their first attempt!
Why were the Danjou so quick to give up? It takes at least six weeks to heal from any kind of brain surgery. Any operation involving nerves takes even longer. Total restoration of sight after the Bant Procedure could take more than a year, and that was with vision therapy. They had told Elder Simon that before they even accepted Patient B as their first subject.
If she only had Patient B’s one-year scans to review, she’d know for certain that their revised procedure could enable mage sight without compromising mundane vision. But even without the scans, both she and Arnie were confident that their error had been in the positioning of the sub-optic nerve. They should have brought it to the anterior right, instead of posterior right of the optic nerve.
Amy was willing to go to Arabia; she’d reconciled herself to that trip months ago as the bargain she made when she landed this project. But it would be insane to put herself or her team in the Amir’s line of sight without testing this operation first! How could the DoD still think they could send a team to Arabia without knowing whether the revised procedure would actually work? Elder Simon certainly hadn’t been impressed by their pre-op warnings and consent forms. If Amira Loujain failed to regain her mage sight and lost her mundane sight at the same time, God only knew what the Dictator would do!
“I agree, Commander. Our work will definitely help in the development of magick-vision goggles. But this is a completely new direction, and we’ll need to set up a new team.”
This was so much worse than Amy had imagined. She had perhaps been too adamant in her opposition to trying out the surgery on Loujain, and now the DoD was giving up. After months of searching, no other prospective patient had been found. But she had the answer now! She was sure their revised procedure would work.
“I would be happy to meet Colonel Cox and review the work we’ve done and what she’s been able to do with — um-huh … Of course. That makes sense. Next week is no good. I’m giving a speech on Monday, and there’s a fundraiser Wednesday. How about tomorrow afternoon? Or Thursday?”
Amy left Eli’s office. There was nothing else she could overhear that would help at this point. She needed another patient now, before Eli came back with whatever spin he planned to put on this disaster. That was the only possible way to get the DoD back on board, or at least give truth to the lies of omission she’d just made on national TV.
They had been foolish to restrict their MRI screening to soldiers. Perhaps the genetics that caused the partial development of a sub-optic nerve in the first place led to flat feet or some other disqualifier for military service. Well, she didn’t have flat feet, so that couldn’t be it.
Amy abruptly stopped walking; the lab technician she had just passed in the hall almost ran into her. She was the prospective patient. The project didn’t have to end ... Ever since Ted had insisted the whole team undergo MRIs, they’d known she had a compatible nerve structure for the surgery. That was why she had believed Patient B wasn’t a fluke, insisted that if they just kept searching, they’d find another patient.
Graham was a great surgeon. He had done his post-doc with her and she’d watched him operate. By now, he was even faster than she was at most operations. She could still prove the procedure worked. Amy started walking again, but much more slowly than she usually did. By the time she got back to her office, her heart was racing. She was thinking crazy things. The idea was ridiculous and unethical and utterly insane. But she sat down and opened her desk drawer anyway. She looked at the glasses case. When the Danjou had suddenly recalled Ted, he’d asked her to keep the enchanted spectacles for him. They were an interdicted item, he’d said; he couldn’t bring them back to the enclave.
Amy tried th
em on, but couldn’t see clearly through them. It was almost like looking through a foggy window. But they had worked for Barry, even though he’d rejected them. Clarity of sight was the most important thing, anyway. A lack of color wouldn’t really change her life; black and white movies weren’t that bad. In truth, she hadn’t sat through a whole movie in years, so what difference did color make?
She took the glasses off and rubbed her chin. Eli would object, Amy knew. But Amy managed the project on a day-to-day basis, and Eli was too preoccupied to focus on the team’s activities. In any event, Eli would be out of the lab this week.
She didn’t care about Phase Two of Project Hathor. In fact, she’d had nightmares about going to Arabia since the DoD suggested it, but now that it was off the table, she didn’t even feel relieved. Now, she just wanted to finish what she had started. To prove it could be done. No, really, she just wanted to finish the work properly; they were too close to give up.
Until now, Amy had never allowed herself to actually consider the benefits of the operation. Barry Riccie had been so taciturn, it would be almost impossible to write up a description of his perceptual change. But as a neurologist, her ability to articulate her perception would be so much better than the average patient. And if the operation was a full success, her unique understanding of the differences between mundane and mage sight could advance the field immeasurably.
Amy stood up abruptly and looked out the window, her hands on her hips. This was utter foolishness. She was only parroting back to herself what Ted had argued to her in the months before his recall. It was the obvious solution to their lack of a subject, he’d said. Didn’t she have confidence in her surgical team? They’d been searching for months, and the only person they found with an unattached sub-optic nerve was Amy. She’d even had multiple scans just to be sure. If she were a mage, she’d have had no choice …
Ted had spent hours trying to persuade her that this was the only logical step forward, ethics be dammed. She had slammed the door so harshly on that line of thinking, she thought their working relationship was probably permanently damaged. Especially now that Ted wasn’t answering her calls. But now Amy stared out at the skyline and let herself think about what it might be like to see “all colors and none … blended into an overload of purity.”
Sirens Unbound Page 26
