by Jody Wallace
“Don’t think so.”
I held the fade. If I realized I was doing it, I could maintain it. It was like forcing yourself to stop tapping the toe you hadn’t realized you were tapping when someone grabbed your knee and yelled, “Stop fidgeting, you’re making me mental!”
“She sucks,” Beau said conversationally. The mask from his previous lie lingered.
“We found her late. It’s to be expected. Is she at lunch?”
“It’s barely nine in the morning.”
“She eats a lot.” Samantha checked her watch. “You haven’t seen her?”
Beau shook his head, the dark mask around his features giving lip.
Too bad I wasn’t good enough to fade and interrogate at the same time. This would be the perfect opportunity to ask Samantha if Alex could be tricking information out of her. It had occurred to me, if she wasn’t the wily traitor herself, she might be an unintentional leak. Psytech was the obvious choice for companies likely to want to destroy YuriCorp, according to everyone. But anytime I asked Samantha about Alex, she changed the subject.
However, lots of folks mingled outside YuriCorp’s pool, so the same could be suspected of anyone with supras in the family circle. An angle worth investigating, but how to do it? I could go house to house hawking goodies for the YuriCorp “Find the Mole” fundraiser. Lou’s extended family alone had so many kids who sold stuff for their schools, nobody would notice. Half the knocks on my apartment door were Lampey offspring with offers of candles, cookies, magazines and wrapping paper.
“It’s urgent,” Samantha said. “If she shows up, tell her—”
“I’m right here.” My face prickled with anxiety. Urgent might mean she’d gotten a lead. John pretended I was a normal employee, but Samantha aided my campaign to stamp out espionage. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was Yuri’s granddaughter or actually cared.
“Jesus!” Samantha rubbed her forehead and laughed. “That’s a strong fade. After years of working here, you’d think I’d be used to stuff like that. I thought you said she sucked.”
“She does,” Beau said. “She only fades when I piss her off, and she can’t speak or it blows it. While I find her silence restful, it won’t be useful on the job.”
I spluttered. “You knew that?”
“Why do you think I’m so hard on you?”
“Because you’re an asshole.”
“That, too.” Beau picked up his clipboard and started scribbling. “You have ten minutes to solve Samantha’s wardrobe crisis, and then I need you back here. I have to run some tests.”
Scrapings and pokings and proddings, oh my.
“I need her until this evening. Pop-Pop’s orders.” As she walked out of the lab, Samantha shrugged out of her coat and gestured for me to follow like a dog to heel. “She’ll work late to make up for it.”
“No, I won’t!” I sputtered. “Tonight is the Hero Wars season finale.” But the door had already swung shut.
Chapter 8
Sneak Thief
Samantha briefed me on the way to a customer site. Three YuriCorp consultants had been running a motivational seminar at a company in Cool Springs, southwest of Nolensville, when my shopping buddy Pavarti had unexpectedly burned out. Yuri suspected sabotage and told Samantha to get me there ASAP so I could question people.
“Is Pavarti all right?” I smoothed my skirt over my legs. Pavarti, Ursula and a guy named Mike Mason had been on this assignment.
“We don’t know yet.” Samantha cut around a slower vehicle on the interstate, pushing the speed limit. “Ursula went with her to the hospital.”
“We get treated in regular hospitals for burnout?”
“That’s why Ursula went with her.” Samantha didn’t elaborate.
I knew Ursula better than Pavarti and could imagine the tall, striking woman was quite capable of protecting Pavarti’s secret. I lunched with her, Samantha and Lou frequently. Ursula wasn’t a spy but she did have a secret—a secret thing for Samantha. She didn’t know I knew since she kept her sexuality to herself, and Sam didn’t know, period.
“You think you can handle this?” Samantha asked.
“Sure,” I said, though I had doubts. I’d been studying business economics, project management, and corporate infrastructures, but the emphasis had been on chameleoning.
“You’re not dressed for a site visit.”
“Why, because I’m not wearing Dolce & Gabbana?” Today I’d worn a grey pencil skirt and pink secretary twin set. I hadn’t joined the suit brigade yet.
“At least you aren’t wearing those cropped Hawaiian pants.” Samantha didn’t bother to lie. “Now those are unprofessional.”
“They’re comfortable and Beau hates them.” Nerves fluttered in my gut as I prepared for my first site visit where I wouldn’t be acting as an observant bystander. I didn’t want to let everyone down, especially Pavarti. It pissed me off our nemesis had targeted my guide to the area’s outlet malls.
“What are we walking into?” I asked.
“Mike is there alone. I’m replacing Ursula and Parvarti at the motivational seminar, where the employer has asked us to inspire people in the wake of a budget crunch.”
“Inspire people?” I’d been in a few such seminars in my time in corporate America and, yep, they’d been useless.
“Motivational seminars run by norms are largely ineffective,” Samantha said. “But our clients ask for them because they’re less expensive than our standard asset evaluations.”
I could understand how Samantha could inspire—push a mood of efficiency on people or something. But the Samantha effect was temporary, and it would be creepy if she went around laying on hands like a faith healer. “What’s the supra spin on one of these seminars?”
“We find out what motivates the employees besides money and advise human resources. All under the guise of personality profiles where we watch people solve group problems.”
It sounded geeky. “Do they work?”
“They could, but what do you think management does with the information?” Samantha snorted. “Usually nothing. Well, we still get paid.”
I wasn’t tagging along to galvanize the working stiffs. I was supposed to find out what had happened to Pavarti. “What should I ask?”
“Who the new hires at the company are. Who interacted with Pavarti. If anyone who isn’t an employee has been around. If there were any electrical surges. Whether Pavarti ate or drank anything that wasn’t in her lunch kit. Which you know about, right?”
“Security regulation eight point two point five. Eat only what you take in so nobody can amp my food.”
“See if anyone noticed anything out of the ordinary. Detective work, Cleo. Indulge your nosy side.”
“In other words, act like Lou.” If I hadn’t known Lou’s only suprasense was to alter memories, I’d have assumed she could do what I did. She knew everything about everybody. The mole predicament could have been solved ages ago if Yuri had put Madame Lampey on the case, but she wasn’t part of the inner circle, and it wasn’t for me to ask why.
Correction. It wasn’t for me to get an answer when I asked why.
Samantha chuckled. Lou was one of the few people she seemed to genuinely like. “Find out if anyone besides Mike or Ursula went anywhere with Pavarti.”
Pavarti was a bi-sensor to my tri-sensor and another senior consultant we’d be hard pressed to replace. She had an uncanny knack for bargain hunting, but her supra ability had something to do with reading moods. We’d lost four senior consultants since I’d started with YuriCorp. Only one showed signs of recovering his abilities.
“Won’t they think it’s weird some random trainee is poking around?” Burnouts were explained as nervous breakdowns to norms if the supra didn’t have the wherewithal to plead stomach flu or migraine. “I can’t fade and ask questions.”
“You faded today.”
I sighed. “Beau made me mad.”
“He makes everyone mad, even John.”
>
“I believe it.” I’d only noticed John get frustrated with Samantha and myself, but Beau was a total pill. Even Iron John snapped sometimes.
We exited the interstate and fought traffic in a heavily commercial mall area. “Don’t worry about fading,” she said with a shrug. “If anyone gets uncomfortable with your methods, point them out and I’ll lay hands. It’s what I do.”
“What if the bad guys are waiting for us to show up so they can burn us all?” And that hadn’t occurred to me before now, why?
“Pop-Pop wouldn’t send us if he were worried about that.”
The burnouts had increased the past year until not even the other firms denied something was amiss. Not that there had been any round tables about it, though we’d all increased security measures. Regardless, the other companies continued to steal our employees and ideas whenever possible. How we’d managed to keep the incidents out of the normal world, I had no idea.
Our destination was near the furniture store where I’d special ordered a bed. We parked in a huge lot and hustled into a tall office building.
“We have somebody procuring the tapes from the security cameras, but without knowing who works here, it’s challenging,” Samantha said. “There’s a guy with another company who can pick out supras on tape, but there’s no time and money to hire him. All we can verify is whether or not we recognize any of the...usual suspects.”
“Psytech employees?” The lobby was marbled and cool, brass railings along the walls. A wide stairwell accessed the second floor and a bank of elevators.
“Don’t believe everything you hear. Or think you hear.” Samantha’s lips tightened and she punched the button for the elevator. In short order, we whizzed up to the sixth floor where the doors opened into another cool, marbled lobby with one of those glossy receptionists who look like she belongs on a catwalk somewhere.
“Hi there,” she said in a chipper Southern accent. “Can I help ya?”
Not the voice I expected out of the icy blonde. Suprasensors came from all over the country, but the locals sounded like Dukes from Hazzard.
“I’m Samantha Graves from YuriCorp. This is one of our interns, Cleopatra Giancarlo. I’m here to replace Ursula St. Marie and Pavarti Singh in the motivational seminar.”
“That poor gal who had the panic attack. Just between you and me, I thought she looked peaked when she came in this morning. Doctor Phil had a show about panic attacks recently, so I recognized it right off.”
“Poor Pavarti,” Samantha said. “I hope I don’t look peaked to you.” She smiled and held out her hand.
I wanted to yell, “Don’t take the hand, it’s a trick!” but Samantha, like me, was here to do her job. Just because she shook hands with the receptionist of the company where one of our employees had taken ill didn’t mean she’d get pushy.
Yeah, right.
“You don’t look peaked at all. Nice suit. Hi, Cleopatra,” said the receptionist. “Y’all sign this visitor sheet here and I’ll get your badges.”
“Have you had many visitors today?” I asked. I hoped it wasn’t an inappropriate question. I flipped through the week. There was one name besides the YuriCorpers, a Loretta Lynn Cooter.
No way was that a real person. “I see Loretta Lynn Cooter was here today.”
The girl angled the clipboard toward her. “Oh, they got me.” She guffawed and scribbled it out before handing the board to Samantha. “We don’t get many visitors.”
Samantha finished signing her name and returned the clipboard. We accepted visitor badges on clips. Samantha affixed hers to her blazer pocket, but I clipped the badge at the lower edge of my cardigan, near my hip.
The receptionist smiled. “Straight back, turn right after the break room, right after the potties, then straight until you see the big room with the glass walls. Can’t miss it.”
As we walked, Samantha added a few more details. “For a job like this, we do batches.” No heads popped out of the vast cubicle farm as we passed. Either they were all in the seminar or they were literally chained to their desks. “Ursula, Pavarti and Mike have been here all week.”
“If the...thing...happens after we’ve been on site awhile,” I said, attempting to couch our discussion in general terms, “it gives outsiders ample opportunity to locate our consultants.” Otherwise known as, the saboteur wasn’t inside YuriCorp, and I was off the hook.
“Sometimes it’s the first day. Once it was during a layover en route. Scheduling has become restricted, for obvious reasons,” she said. “Here we are.”
Mike hadn’t been trained to lead seminars. Chameleons like Mike, Ursula and myself were confession prompters and eavesdroppers. Even from outside the glass wall, I could tell Mike was doing a terrible job. People who were supposed to be experiencing great rejuvenation texted on cell phones or stared into space with glazed expressions.
Samantha knocked on the door, and Mike acknowledged her with a finger wave. The employee closest to the door leapt up and opened it. With a sheepish grin, she slipped past us and melted into cubicle land as quick as a blink.
“This is my colleague, Samantha Graves.” Mike didn’t introduce me; he might not remember me. No insult—I didn’t know him from Adam, as Mike and Adam resembled one other a great deal, both brown-haired, paunchy, and fond of grey suits with bright blue shirts. “If everyone would like to take fifteen, I’m going to get Ms. Graves up to speed so she can lead the rest of today’s seminar.”
The employees broke, and I could tell without suprasenses several wouldn’t come back. Samantha hovered in the doorway and shook hands with the parolees. Maybe they’d be back after the break, after all.
When everyone cleared out, Samantha cornered Mike. “What happened? Cleo, you need to hear this, too.”
Did she want me included in the process or testing Mike for honesty? I watched carefully as he talked.
“No outside food or drinks, no contact with anyone I could tell. Pavarti mentioned yesterday the employees all had PMS or cubicle rage or something. Today she complained of a headache and blurred vision before it happened. She was reading the room, nothing she hadn’t handled before. She’ll be all right, won’t she?”
“Roxanne met them at the hospital. She’ll let us know as soon as she makes a diagnosis.”
“Pavarti can read a stadium when she’s fresh,” Mike insisted, believing every word he said. “This wasn’t a normal occurrence. It was another attack. My God, I can’t believe this happened right under our noses, and to Pavarti, of all people.”
I glanced through the glass walls, where office drones meandered past. None of them looked deadly, but looks weren’t everything.
“Are we in danger?” I asked Mike, to see if he lied.
He shook his head. “There’ve never been two incidents on a single assignment.”
Not a yes or no—a statement of fact.
“None of us are in danger,” Samantha said.
While Mike hadn’t lied, Samantha had. She knew I’d see it. Was she trying to scare the shit out of me or tell me something? Dammit! Didn’t she know we had to practice the bad supra, good supra routine before it would work?
“Mike,” I said, “did anybody act weird?”
“No weirder than usual,” he said. “Any visitors today?”
“Loretta Lynn Cooter.” I emphasized her last name. They ignored me.
“No visitors signed in.” Samantha gestured up at the ceiling. “Security vid’s still a possibility.”
“Did anybody come to more than one workshop?” I asked.
They glared at me. Why did that question merit a glower when saying “Cooter” hadn’t? There were always folks in an office who wanted to avoid the grind so much they attended every session. Plus, free food.
“A few VPs were repeats,” Mike said. “The human resources secretary came three times.”
The secretary probably hated her job, but the VP behavior was suspicious. “I’ll start there. VPs and HR secretary.”
&nbs
p; Samantha coughed.
“Start there doing what?” Mike asked.
“Oh, lurking and sneaking.” I blushed. “I’m not great at the...thing we can do, but I’ve worked in offices for years. Maybe I’ll pick something up.”
“Pop-Pop wants Cleo to approach people who took the seminar and get evaluations,” Samantha said. “He wants you with this group since it happened in their proximity.”
“I hate this.” Mike rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I wish there was more I could do. I am sick over this, Samantha. She’d lost consciousness by the time Ursula got her out of here.”
I felt a little sick myself, sicker by the minute. I gulped. “Is passing out normal?”
“It’s getting to be,” Samantha said grimly. She patted Mike’s shoulder. “Keep your chin up and your ear to the ground.”
Mike nodded, looking slightly less ill. I wondered if she’d given him a mood tweak. The employees of YuriCorp had to be leery of Samantha’s hands; she hadn’t kept her ability private like some did. As far as I knew, there was nothing in anyone’s contract to disallow the use of one’s suprasense for personal reasons, any more than there was anything to disallow the use of one’s breasts as manipulative devices.
“Here come the troops,” she said. “Cleo, the blank evaluations are in my briefcase.”
Employees shuffled in with recharged coffee cups. The wishful deserters Samantha had singled out had notepads, pens and eager expressions.
Mike took a seat near the back of the room and nodded before he turned into “some guy”. Even if one of the norms had been looking at him, they wouldn’t have noticed his transition. He wasn’t invisible—people wouldn’t sit on him or anything—he was just a nonentity.
“Welcome back, everyone.” Samantha shook hands in a brisk, efficient fashion, smiling and patting as many employees as she could reach. “I’d like to discuss what happened to Ms. Singh before we proceed,” Samantha said. “Job stress can result in some serious side effects. That’s part of the reason why we’re here, to teach you how to reduce job stress.”
