In Irina's Cards (The Variant Conspiracy #1)

by Christine Hart

  “Great, so I get dawn patrol. I assume I’ll miss out on hot food too?”

  “You can eat before you go, Cole. We start breakfast around six, but we keep it hot for a couple of hours because we have to eat in shifts. The sun and the tide coming in will probably wake you up long before either breakfast is over or the park attendant gets here. You might even feel like you’re camping,” she said with a smirk.

  Cole opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it.

  Camille turned to show us to our tents and everyone followed. Walking behind her, I noticed how graceful she was. The white linen top and knee-length cotton skirt didn’t look warm enough, but she moved comfortably. Her hair was piled into a messy bun on top of her head. Woven hemp bracelets around her wrists complemented a wood pendant hanging from a leather cord around her neck. As a masseuse and a healer, she seemed like the sort of person who experienced an emotional connection to nature and the earth itself. Then again, I had just watched my friends exercise their command over the elements. I was probably one of the few people on the beach that didn’t have a physical tie to the natural world.

  The night passed peacefully, at least for me. Mine and Faith’s tent wasn’t exactly hotel caliber, but the foam mattress was large enough for both of us to sleep comfortably and the sheets had been to the camp’s laundry, such as it was. We both still had our purses, so between the two of us, we had the basics to freshen-up. I hadn’t camped since my last year of high school, but I remembered how much the simplicity appealed to me.

  Camille had predicted correctly; the sun and the ocean woke us. My phone read 6:35 AM when I finished tying my ponytail after slipping my jeans back on. We stopped at the camp’s outhouse, which was in exactly the state you’d expect it to be. We used generous amounts of Faith’s hand sanitizer before making our way to breakfast.

  The basic scrambled egg, sausage, flat bread, and berry juice fare tasted amazing. I ate ravenously, frantically grateful for the food. As the last few camp residents finished their meals, they responded to an unspoken command to clean. Before I could offer to help, they were done and Ilya stood at the entrance end of the tent, waiting for everyone to gather. He didn’t quite wait for the entire group before starting.

  “Most of you have probably noticed that four guests that joined us last night. Many of you are already acquainted, so I’ll get straight to the point. You know why we’re out here and that something sketchy is going on in the city at Innoviro Industries. Some of you worked there, but probably most were ‘volunteers’ for testing. The reason I’ve asked you to meet this morning is that it’s finally time to pool our resources and our collective knowledge. We have reason to believe that my father’s work is even more dangerous than I’d originally suspected. I left Innoviro thinking that he simply tried to cut corners and make a bit more money. Unfortunately there is new evidence that suggests his motives are larger, but we don’t know exactly what. To help us figure this out, I’m asking all of you to think long and hard, now and over the next few days, to revisit in your mind anything you worked on or anything you have knowledge of that could shed some light on what my father is really doing. If you don’t feel you can talk about it in front of the group, come find me later.” Ilya paused to let the speech sink in and, I assumed, hoping for someone to speak in response. Heads swiveled back and forth as each resident assessed the group.

  “I have something to share,” said the older man with the tangled ponytail. His denim shirt had been replaced by another collared shirt, this one a murky brown plaid. “My job wasn’t really all that important. I was a maintenance person. But when Tatiana hired me, she and Ivan didn’t need full time cleaning and repairs. Their research was too sensitive to let a property management or janitorial company onto the property. They wanted one person to be responsible for all of it. One of us that they could trust.”

  “Vincent, thank you for sharing that,” Ilya said. To the crowd, he continued, “So you all know, Tatiana is my aunt. She has a senior and extremely guarded position with the company. Maybe not all of you met her, but she travelled around to several of our offices regularly.”

  A sudden lurch of unease gripped me. I’d forgotten that Innoviro had other offices. Ivan made his own travel arrangements for inter-office trips and I had never thought to question why. In spite of working directly with Ivan, I had no addresses or phone numbers for the other Innoviro offices. I hoped someone here knew.

  Faith’s hand shot into the air. “I have an idea,” she said. “Let’s tap Irina. She worked as his personal assistant. She was right there with him all the time. She must have seen or heard stuff that’s useful.”

  “Um, I’ve pretty much told Ilya everything I know.” I said, feeling suddenly defensive. “I’m not hiding anything. Of all people, why would I hold out?”

  “I’m not saying you’re holding out. I’m talking about your subconscious,” said Faith.

  “Why don’t you hypnotize her? She could have seen something crucial, but didn’t realize at the time,” said Camille.

  I assumed she addressed Ilya, but to be sure, I looked across the crowd searching for Camille’s distinctive pile of honey-colored hair. As I took in the faces around me in the daylight, I saw that most of these people could go out in public. However, I found several eye-catching faces amongst the heads around me.

  A young boy, maybe not past his mid-teens, blinked at me with solid golden yellow eyes. His pupil was a thin black ellipse, but more startling, his olive skin had a sheen to it which looked almost like scales. Past him I saw an older woman with soft grey chin length hair. She also had white serrated mandibles extending from the corners of her mouth. Another familiar face from my Cymbals vision. I tried not to stare as I wondered what else her closed mouth contained. I found Camille and saw an expression of concern that was indeed directed at Ilya.

  “I could try hypnotizing Irina, but let’s not put anyone on the spot right now. We can talk about it later,” Ilya said.

  More variants continued volunteering bits of minutia, but it became apparent that Ivan had been meticulous in segregating each project or experiment, restricting valuable data to a select few senior staff that were still with the company. I hadn’t realized how many variants he’d tested pills and injections on, but most of the people under that tent had been test subjects rather than trusted employees. If Ivan wasn’t sloppy enough to let his mid- to low-level staff know his secrets, he certainly wasn’t going to let a random test subject stumble onto the heart of his business. For the same reason I’d said yes to Ivan’s injections, I felt myself warming to the idea of Ilya hypnotizing me. So after the conversation dwindled and Ilya wrapped up the meeting, I made my way over to him.

  “That didn’t sound as productive as I’d hoped for,” I said with a smile.

  “No, I suppose not, but I didn’t have high expectations,” Ilya said. “I knew my father was careful.”

  “Then I guess I need to let you poke around in my head. I’m assuming your hypnosis comes with a little ‘extra’ if you’re able to read minds.”

  “I can put you into a state of deep relaxation and help you remember things in more detail. The only problem is that it’s not like watching surveillance footage. We’re looking at images captured by your mind after they’re already filtered by your perception.”

  “Okay, I think I see what you mean. You know I’m not convinced my visions are a mainline into some universal event recorder either.”

  “True, it’s hard to tell. I’m jaded from my own disappointments. Let’s go back to my tent and get started.”

  I followed Ilya back to his tent, a tall structure that looked like an army issue thing made with flat sage green canvas and plastic windows topped by roll-up canvas curtains. Wherever he got it, Ilya’s tent had been built to last. He swept his arm towards his cot, prompting me to lie down and relax. He sat in a foldi
ng camping chair next to the milk crate nightstand. Ilya didn’t give me the standard hypnosis spiel I was expecting. He put his hand on my forehead and told me to loosen my muscles and think of my desk and daily routine at Innoviro. Like one of my visions, the tent melted away and I stood in front of the main door outside the office.

  I heard Ilya’s voice. “You’re back at your office first thing in the morning. You’re hesitating outside because you know it’s going to be a busy day today. Ivan told you he needed your help planning a trip.”

  I looked down at my outfit and the coffee in my hand. The scene did feel familiar. I thought of the day I arranged Ivan’s trip to California earlier that spring.

  “Go inside the office. Tell me what you see,” Ilya said.

  “The office is empty. Melissa must be running late. I’m glad and I hope she gets in trouble,” I said, replying to his voice as though he stood next to me. I felt a lack of control and I was compelled to answer him honestly whether I wanted to or not, like I’d had too much to drink or woken from a deep sleep.

  “What is your top priority today? Where is the first place you go?”

  “I’m going to my desk to put my coffee, coat, and purse away, and to start my computer. I need to be efficient today, so I want my computer booting while I find the papers I need to leave on Ivan’s desk. I’ve found the folder I wanted. Now I’m putting his coffee on the coaster by his phone. We’re planning a trip to San Francisco, so these pages are what I printed yesterday for each of the downtown hotels. Once he picks his favorite, I’ll need to finish booking the room, renting his car, and downloading menus for nearby restaurants that look good.”

  “Since you’re with me today, we’re going to freeze time. Remember, what we’re doing is like looking at a recording. Now, that you’re in Ivan’s office, time is standing still for everyone but us. You won’t get caught. Take a look around his desk. Really look at everything. Do you see his black leather day planner? Are any of his desk drawers locked?” Ilya’s voice soothed me and I believed him. I could feel him with me in Ivan’s office.

  “His desk is tidy. He doesn’t keep many personal items here. I see that desk toy with the swinging steel balls and his stone coffee coaster. His black book isn’t here. He always takes it wherever he goes.”

  “Is there anything on his computer screen?” said Ilya.

  “No, it’s still off. Wait, if I touch the keyboard it might trigger a vision and I’ll see what he types.” I reached out to touch the plastic keys. “It’s not working. Maybe if I stay longer . . .”

  “Remember, you’re only exploring your memory; you’re not actually touching the keyboard. Take one more look around Ivan’s office. Does anything else grab your attention?”

  “His snake, Chester, is awake this morning. I don’t like that Ivan makes me feed his snake. Sometimes I think he enjoys making me uncomfortable. He must know I hate the snake.”

  “Is the snake doing anything at the moment?”

  “No, it’s just staring at me. Wait, his eyes are different. They’re red. They’re like the eyes that were chasing me! Those horrible, evil eyes! They’re going to tear me to shreds! That face wants to turn me inside-out! I can feel it!” I felt the terror of my dream from the old room at the Capital motel.

  “Irina, come back to me here at the beach. Now!” Ilya said urgently.

  I sat bolt upright on the bed, back in Ilya’s tent. I’ve only ever woken screaming once before; the first time I spent the night at my boyfriend Adam’s house and his alarm shrieked at five-o-clock in the morning. It was an instinctual cry. The sound coming from my mouth in Ilya’s tent was a shrill scream of utter terror. I managed to cut it off with a deep breath and sat panting for a moment. Then confusion muddled my mind. How could Ivan’s snake possibly evoke what I felt in my nightmare at the motel? Why had I seen the same eyes in Ivan’s reflection, housed in a horrible silhouette?

  “Are you all right?” Concern furrowed Ilya’s face.

  “Yes, it’s fine. I’m fine. I saw something from a nightmare. It must have crept into the vision somehow.”

  “That walk took us through a dream? I was trying to probe a memory. That’s really unusual for one to seep into the other. In fact, I’ve never seen anything like it. Then again, psychics are extremely rare and I’ve never been into one’s head.”

  “Great, well, you learn something new every day, right?” I laughed nervously.

  “We did learn something, but poking around on the surface at Innoviro isn’t going to be enough. I suspected we wouldn’t learn much, but I wanted to be sure. Stealing my father’s black book and hacking into Innoviro’s network come next. Also, his snake is obviously more dangerous than your average python.”

  “There’s something I should have told you. I saw Ivan in his apartment at night. And I saw his reflection, but it wasn’t him. The way the overhead light and the streetlights outside came together, I only saw the outline. But his reflection had red eyes, in the body of something like a serpent. It was awful, especially because I’d already had a vision of being stalked, and that vision had a sudden flash of those fierce red eyes. Not just glowing. The iris looked human, but had the texture of an ember at the same time. I can’t verbally do justice to how frightening the sight was.”

  “I was there with you when your mind went back to that image. I saw it too.” Ilya paused, “At least we know we’re right about my father, even if we don’t know why. Personally, I don’t think it’s him. I think something or someone has a hold on him.”

  “You mean possessed?”

  “Or some kind of parasite. It’s difficult to speculate without getting philosophy involved.”

  “Maybe this is ignorant of me to ask, but if you really want to know what’s going on with Ivan, why don’t you read his mind?”

  “That’s a totally fair question. I wish I had a better answer. The few occasions I’ve tried reading my father’s mind are part of why I think something has a hold on him. His mind isn’t like anyone else’s. His brain is almost feral. His thoughts are a tangle of colors and shapes. At first I didn’t have the courage to ask him why. If I said anything, I had to admit to trying to read his mind. But, one day I plucked up the nerve and he said it was part of his variation. And then he looked at me for a long moment and told me never to go digging in his head ever again. It’s one of the rare times I ever feared him.”

  “So tell me, how early does that bar open?” I asked, followed by a nervous laugh. I had no intention of spoiling the day by drinking my fears into oblivion, but it was funny to contemplate. Ilya laughed and told me the bar had self-serve coffee in the mornings, although he’d get me the key to the liquor trunk if I really wanted it.

  I took my coffee in a chipped ceramic mug down to the beach, back to the fire pit we’d all been standing around the previous night. Watching the wild waves of the open ocean reach up and crash down in front of me drove the questions and the worries from my mind. Each swell of water ascended, crested, and then fell in a delightful mess of foam, reliable as my breaths in and out, yet unevenly shaped finding a slightly different purchase on the sand with each blow. It suddenly made sense, why people surfed and sailed and paid exorbitant prices for oceanfront property.

  The surf in front of me changed with every wave. Each curl of bubbling white and slate grey sucked back on the sand like a mouth drawing a breath, then launched forward exhaling foam onto the slick caramel sand. I looked farther down the beach to where the dry sand mingled with old seaweed and driftwood. The wind caressed the reeds and grasses sprouting here and there. The sky overhead was clear pale blue, cold like the air around me.

  “Hi,” said a redheaded girl who appeared next to me. I’d noticed her standing inside the tent at this morning’s meeting. She had a tired, sad air to her.

  “Hi,” I said back.

  “So you�
��re a psychic.”

  “Yep. And I’m a newbie. My name’s Irina,” I said.

  “I’m Valerie. I’m a contortionist.” Valerie stretched her arms with fingers interlocked, effortlessly dislocating her shoulders to roll her arms behind her back. I’d seen that done before, but before I could say so, she swiveled her head around as well, lifting one leg and threading it through her clasped hands, remaining gracefully balanced on her other leg. She rotated her head back around to look me in the eye again and gave me a tiny shy smile.

  I took a moment to compose myself after staring back at her wide-eyed. “Impressive! That was something else, for sure. So I saw you at the meeting this morning. Did you used to work at Innoviro? Or go through some of their tests?” I asked in as polite a tone as I could manage.

  “I used to be in an underground freak show down in the States,” she said bluntly.

  I spray-spat my mouthful of coffee onto the sand. “Naturally. So have you got any insights into the problem with Innoviro?”

  “I think your father is a bad man, but he’s working with someone worse.”

  “No, Ivan is Ilya’s father, not mine. But I think you’re right, he probably isn’t at the top of the ladder in this little tangle.”

  “I have to go now.” Valerie instantly turned on her heel and cartwheeled off down the beach. I watched her twirling form spiral smaller and smaller as she picked up speed on the open sandy stretch ahead.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” said a familiar voice behind me as I jumped.

  “Cole! You scared the hell out of me!” I said, shaken and irritated.