The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1)

by Jody Wallace

  He was, but I said, “Hell, no,” anyway. This might be his sly way of locating YuriCorp’s secret headquarters, if he didn’t already know.

  “Miss Giancarlo, you haven’t heard our terms. They’re very competitive.” The spokesperson for the track suit Mafia advanced as far as John, who glared alternately at them and Alex. Why the hell didn’t he get his ass over here and take me home?

  My hero. Not.

  “They’re clowns.” Alex dismissed them, propping his elbows in the open window. “You’re right to ignore them.”

  “Go away or I’ll tell Samantha what you lied about,” I hissed. There hadn’t been anything in particular that would make a girlfriend angry, just a competitor.

  She was both.

  “I didn’t lie about anything,” he lied.

  “You’re lying right now.” Dealing with people who knew about my ability was liberating. I didn’t have to bite my tongue if I didn’t want to, and I didn’t want to. “No way am I going anywhere near Psytech after what I read off you. Get away from me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said truthfully. Well, people like Alex lie so much they probably can’t remember specific falsities. “I’ve worked at several companies, and Psytech pays the best.”

  “Money’s not everything. John!” I tried again. “Can we please go?”

  “I’m technically supposed to let them present their offers,” John said gruffly. “If anyone finds you before you sign somewhere, they get a chance.”

  Says who? There were no supra cops, yet supra politics, even without a ruling body, were as bullshit as non-supra politics. There were all these expectations and hidden meanings I knew nothing about, yet I was expected to abide.

  “What if I don’t want them to have a chance? Why don’t I get a say?”

  “It’s policy.” John shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  I was sorry my okay-okay-it-wasn’t-a-date with John had turned into a close encounter of the annoying and vaguely threatening kind. Not that it had been going anywhere close to an encounter of another kind. Alas.

  “What about after I sign with someone? Will everyone leave me alone then?”

  John shrugged. “Sort of.”

  Pissed, I slid out of John’s side of the truck with my tire gauge while Alex leaned against the cab and smirked. I stomped up to the short man who’d spoken the most and said, “Are any of you or anyone at your companies threatening or bothering my stepfather about this? I want an answer from everyone. You, you and you. Take off your sunglasses.”

  They did. I looked each of them in the eyes and asked the question, varied each time so they couldn’t prep themselves for it.

  They all said “No” without masks.

  “Next question.” I turned to Shortie. Sweat sheened his forehead between his salt and pepper monobrow and ball cap—stupid to wear a black track suit in this weather. “Do you cheat on your wife or girlfriend?”

  “What?” His monobrow did the wacky. “Of course not.”

  “Liar,” I said, because he was.

  If I unsettled them, they couldn’t maintain a subterfuge as well. It worked with norms, and if I went about it right, I could make it work with supras.

  I squinted at him and his buddies. “Whose idea was it to wear those lame matching track suits and caps?”

  He boggled at me. “What’s wrong with our tracks? They’re slick.”

  It was sad, very sad, that he protested in all honesty. “Last question. Does your company condone or indulge in any type of illegal activities like corporate spying?”

  “Ah,” he said. “I plead the fifth.”

  What a doofus.

  “Bzzt, wrong answer.” I turned to John. “They had their chance. Let’s go.”

  “Why don’t you ask Arlin that last question?” Alex called out.

  “No need,” I said. “Yuri’s answers satisfied me, and yours do not.” I turned to the foursome. “Yours, either.”

  “You didn’t ask Arlin.” Alex, still reclining on John’s truck, grinned outright, which wasn’t an improvement from the smirk. “You should sometime.”

  “Whatever, jackass,” I muttered. “We’re leaving now. Come on, John.”

  “Go on, John,” Alex mocked. When I jabbed my tire gauge at him like a knife, he held up his hands and stepped onto the shoulder. A piece of splintered white fence rested on the gravel next to his feet. I edged past him, into the truck.

  “By the way, Arlin,” he said, “tell your people the fence is on me. I know YuriCorp can’t afford a lot of extra expenditures.”

  John’s lips pinched. “You had nothing to do with that. We’ll take care of it.”

  “Actually, I did have something to do with it.”

  “Is that what happened to the steering? You son of a bitch!” The driver of the Baumhauser car flipped up his bony middle finger at Alex.

  Alex smiled. “Take it up with my mother.”

  I slammed the truck door and started rolling up the window. Alex placed his hand on it, bringing his face closer to mine. “Come with me. You’ll be glad you did.”

  At this distance, I could practically count the eyelashes surrounding his Husky-blue eyes. I could definitely smell him.

  Powder and...lavender? Maybe it was Samantha’s perfume, though I didn’t recall she smelled like a sachet.

  “Back off,” I said. “Don’t try to hoodoo me.”

  “As you wish, Cleo...patra. I’ll see you soon.” He waved John into the truck as if granting us permission to depart.

  I triumphed over my inner ten year old and didn’t follow up with, “Not if I see you first.”

  Everyone pulled out at the same time. We did the speed limit but stuck to each other’s bumpers like ticks. Any minute now I expected a drag race.

  A couple SUVs passed us going the other direction. So there were other people in this part of town. “If we go to Merlin’s, will they bug me? I’ve had enough testosterone today.”

  “You turned down the offers. You should be clear, at least from them. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

  “I guess it’s okay. Nobody hurt us.” Unless the steam coming out of my ears had damaged my eardrums. “How is it so many people know about me if I’m supposed to be secret?”

  He tapped a finger on the steering wheel. “When we find someone like you, the information isn’t broadcast. The suprasensor community follows certain policies. Trackers find suspects and notify their superiors, who tell specific recruiters. The public information about a new supra is all that’s sent to the Registry by the employer’s Registry operator. Even then, there are a limited number of people with Registry privileges who can access your charts. Your primary ability won’t be in the Registry.”

  Should I have been so obvious about what I could do? “What about all those people?”

  “The other recruiters? Nobody who does know about your particular ability will share it. That would decrease a company’s ability to maximize it.”

  “If you say so.” People always told. “Thursday I was living a normal life and now I’m not. I never get to again, do I?”

  John didn’t respond. The whole thing sounded more complicated than a non-governmental organization ought to be. Since he wouldn’t answer my existential complaint, I said, “If YuriCorp’s tracker found me, who told Psytech and Baumhauser?”

  “They were tipped off another way.” John’s lips thinned into a grim line.

  “The leak.” This put YuriCorp’s trackers first on my list of people to question, and perhaps Samantha, who’d given her boyfriend that head’s up.

  “Our trackers are the best in the business.” John focused on Alex’s car ahead of us as if he could explode it with his gaze. “Sometimes that doesn’t matter.”

  I swiveled so I could see him, my seat belt biting my shoulder. Yow, there was a bit of bruising, after all. “You hate him, don’t you?”

  “Hate is a strong word.”

  Not a lie. Nor an a
nswer.

  “Are you jealous of him and Samantha? He’s doing his job as a recruiter, but you’re reacting like it’s personal.” If John secretly loved his coworker, it would explain how he could tell me he was single last night but not hit on me today.

  Not being interested in me would explain it as well.

  John huffed. “Cleo, I’m not comfortable with this line of questioning. I’d appreciate it if you don’t use your powers on me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I sank into my seat like a deflating balloon. It hadn’t been intentional—exactly. It was so automatic to go digging for whatever I wanted. I’d have to learn to refrain with my new friends.

  With superhuman, I mean, suprahuman effort, I stared out the opposite window all the way to Merlin’s. John didn’t even pretend to make small talk. Instead of joining me for a meal, he excused himself to place business calls. There was no one to people-watch at this hour, so I ate in lonely silence.

  I felt lower than a worm. He couldn’t bear to share the booth with me after I’d tried to con personal information out of him. Maybe he’d get over it, and maybe he wouldn’t. All I could do was behave myself in the future.

  And pray this wasn’t a precursor to life in the supra world, because being shunned might be worse than being alone.

  Chapter 6

  Can a Chameleon Change His Spots?

  I presented myself at YuriCorp’s gym bright and early Monday morning to hand in my paperwork and begin testing and training. I hoped they didn’t want me to train in the gym and turn me into some lean, mean, kick-boxing secret agent, because no.

  The whole area smelled like fruit-flavored gelatin snacks. Aromatherapy piped in to cover less pleasant bodily odors? A few people grunted with free weights, and several sweated on the treadmills in front of a bank of television sets. I was unfamiliar with gyms, which would be obvious to anyone around me more than five minutes, but this one seemed small.

  I spotted John near the back. Looking far too awake for this hour of the day, he shook my hand when I reached him, his grasp warm.

  “Good morning, Cleo,” he said, as if he hadn’t been peeved at me last night. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Well enough.”

  After my early dinner, I’d been alone the rest of the day, except when Alfonso stocked my fridge and offered to take me to church (yes to food, no to Jesus). I called Dan and told him I’d been headhunted for a job in Nashville, then spent the evening flicking between the three channels on the small television and wishing my day with John had gone differently. Wishing I had my laptop so I could update my blog. Wishing I had something to wear besides the T-shirt and flowered capris John had seen yesterday. I didn’t want to pinch myself into the black suit again after its jaunt on the beer joint floor Saturday night.

  Besides, I had tests today. Tests for becoming a secret agent management consultant might include physical activity, though they could also be sitting around a conference table pointing out fibbers or attempting to blend in with the furniture.

  “If you haven’t had breakfast, there are doughnuts in the break room.” John, of course, wore a nice suit with a cartoon tie.

  Feeling underdressed, I followed him out the back of the gym. None of the patrons paid attention to us—either they weren’t YuriCorpers or there was more to being a chameleon than I realized. Next we descended the stairs under the dumpsters. He went first. Never one to waste a good opportunity to objectify a man, I checked out his backside, but his suit jacket covered anything interesting.

  “Is this the only way in and out?” I asked, glad he couldn’t see my ogling.

  “It’s the main one.” John stopped at the front desk, staffed by a man I didn’t recognize, and I handed over my forms for HR. Then we were off through the cubicles and into a section of the building I hadn’t been shown Saturday. We took stairs to another level of the facility. This level was bunker-like, down to the concrete walls and floor.

  I lowered my voice. “Am I supposed to be doing my other...you know...when I’m being tested? Or are you and Samantha going to test me?”

  And would John’s test involve kissing my DNA? My brain revisited that notion for the umpteenth time. I couldn’t help myself. The man smelled good, looked better, and had that nice guy demeanor that usually translated to eager to please in bed.

  He guided me around a trolley full of paper, almost touching my arm. “For now you’ll be tested and trained by our top chameleon.”

  Damn.

  “His name is Beau Walker. But yes, you should always be alert.”

  We halted by a door marked Laboratory, and I smiled up at him alertly. “I can do that.”

  “Remember you can’t discuss it, not with anyone.”

  “Not even with you?” Whatever would we talk about instead?

  “Not unless you know you’re in a secure area or you’ve got a blanket.”

  “Ohhhh-kay.” I nodded as if I knew what the hell he meant. I didn’t think it had anything to do with the green, fuzzy thing on the bed in my wee cell.

  John slid his card through a reader, and the laboratory door clicked open with a stale hiss. He glanced at me with a frown. “A blanket is a device that creates a supersonic noise to prevent someone like Al from listening in. Our tech guys invented them in the eighties.”

  Inside was a room with benches, lockers, shelves, and hooks on the walls that held white coats and jumpsuits. There was also a giant metal sink, a water fountain, and a potted plant. Several doors led out of the room.

  “I assume my teacher isn’t supposed to know,” I commented, emphasizing the last word.

  “Correct.” John pointed me to a locker, silencing me for the time being. “Leave your things here.”

  I eyed the jumpsuits warily. Were we going into a sterile area? “Do I have to undress?”

  “No, of course not!” he exclaimed, as if the thought appalled him.

  Well, gee. One more tick on the “he’s just not that into you” chart.

  “Leave your satchel. I’ll issue you a coat and pair of shoe covers. Our DNA guy doesn’t mind if you wear street clothes, but he gets finicky if you bring in electronic or metal objects.”

  “Jewelry?” I had on little gold hoops.

  “If it’s small.” John opened a cabinet and withdrew a coat and pair of blue elasticized bags meant to go over my tennies. He took out a marker and wrote my name on the pocket of the jacket.

  “Very chic.” I shrugged into the sleeves and did up the buttons.

  He found his own coat and put it on. “Saves money.”

  I was beginning to realize they did a lot of things economically. The coat hung like a Granny house dress. I’d rather have worn the house dress, because they come in pretty fabrics. White was not my color.

  Once we were shed of extraneous metallic objects, John slid his card through a reader beside one of the doors and it clunked open. We entered a small lab that was a mess of machines, cups, test tubes, papers, books and half-eaten sandwiches so old I wondered if the experiment was on Wonder Bread instead of people.

  This was a semi-sterile environment?

  A shortish black man in a white coat rattled a centrifuge, clicked the switch, and stepped back when it whirred into action. No one else was in the lab.

  “Cheap piece of crap,” he muttered.

  I hadn’t known what to expect from the person they said was their top chameleon, but it wasn’t this guy. His hair stood up from his head in mini dreads that had seen tidier days, and bright blue hiking sandals squeaked on the tile when he pivoted.

  “Beau,” John said. “We’re here. Are you ready for Cleo?”

  He glanced up. His face was angular, dominated by horn-rimmed glasses with tape on one side and that messy head of hair. Unlike most everyone at YuriCorp, Beau was not wearing a suit. It was possible he wasn’t wearing pants. His dark, muscular legs were bare, which took business casual to a whole new level.

  No matter one’s preferences, this was not the type of guy
you’d fail to notice. Either his scientist ‘n scruff combination would confuse you or you’d be dying to know whether he was naked under the lab coat.

  A chameleon? Someone who’d be ignored? I think not.

  He grabbed a nearby clipboard and walked toward us, shoes cheeping and coat flapping open to reveal khaki shorts and a dark T-shirt.

  Ok, not naked. Not that I’d been dying to know.

  He appeared to be annoyed and distant at the same time, as if his brain were preoccupied by something much loftier than a trainee. A part of my experience in the suprasensor world that had been missing clicked into place.

  Here was the mad scientist.

  I nodded instead of holding out my hand. “I’m Cleo. Nice to meet you.”

  “Cleo. Cleo.” Beau raked me up and down with his magnified eyes, seemingly displeased by my appearance. Darn this ugly coat. “Am I supposed to know who this is, Arlin?”

  How rude!

  “Cleopatra Giancarlo. The new hire. You’re assigned to train her.”

  “The boss’s new pet. Now I remember. Lousy timing. He won’t reconsider?”

  “No,” John said.

  Beau took off his glasses, stuck them in his breast pocket, and handed me the clipboard. “This data needs to be entered into the computer. You do know how to use a computer?”

  The sheet on the clipboard was covered in nonsensical flowcharts, numbers, and mathematical equations with a lot of letters. Physics? Calculus? Crazy scribblings of a demented man? “I can use a computer, but I don’t know what this means.”

  John gave my shoulder a quick, sexless pat before admonishing Beau. “She’s a chameleon, not a lab assistant. We need her in the field in a month.”

  “A month?” Beau gave me another once over, found me further below par than the first time, and puffed. “Not gonna happen, man.”

  “Three months?”

  Beau just shook his head.

  “I’m a fast learner,” I protested. Of course my boast had no bearing because I didn’t know what chameleon training entailed. Coordinating my attire with the wallpaper?

  “You obviously don’t understand the first thing about your nature.” Beau shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “We’ll have to start from scratch, and I don’t have time to baby a noob.”