by Jody Wallace
“Fuck this. I’m out of here.” Clint took off toward the pasture.
Should I go for the gun? Stay where I was? Steal a car and speed to the picnic, shouting for Al to bring the cavalry? Beau had said something about making a few calls. Had that included reinforcements?
“I don’t want to hurt you, Mrs. Lampey,” Alex said. She feinted. He dodged.
“I saw you try to fight my boys. You won’t hurt me.” Lou flexed her fingers and circled him. She was nimble for such a burly woman. Perhaps her gym trainer taught her wrestling. “What are you gonna do, Berkley? You can’t push me like your girlfriend does, and you obviously can’t box.”
“I am—”
When he was mid-sentence, she pounced. He sidestepped—not far enough. She laughed and seized his chin in her hand.
“Forget about it,” she ordered.
Alex blinked, his eyes clouded. Then they sharpened, as did his smile. “Your money’s no good here.” He tried to twist her arm behind her back.
“Damn, one of those.” Lou kneed Alex’s crotch and dashed for her gun.
As he doubled over and gasped, the wuss, Samantha’s foot intercepted the gun. She kicked. The weapon skidded toward Rachel.
“Bad aim!” I dropped the shovel and lunged for the pistol.
Rachel and I bonked heads like two pumpkins. Pain nearly fractured my face and skull. God, I couldn’t see. Lights flashed across my field of vision, and I figured I’d come to with a gun jammed against my temple and Rachel in control of the whole situation.
In the only stroke of luck I’d had today, Rachel’s handcuffed arm reached its limit before she reached her goal. I backed toward the gun, rubbing my head. Without taking my woozy gaze off her, I fumbled behind me.
A foot smashed my fingers into the handle, and I cried out. I looked up just as Lou looked down, her hair askew. Then Alex smashed into her linebacker style.
“You okay, Cleo?” John called from the tack room.
“No!” I yelled back, dragging the gun toward me with aching fingers. No bones showing, no obvious breaks. Just gut-wrenching pain. Was there any part of me that wasn’t bruised, banged or burned out?
I crawled to the ladder, dragged myself erect, and aimed the gun in the general direction of Alex and Lou, both trying to get the advantage with little success. Lou fought seriously dirty, and Alex didn’t seem to have the stomach to return the favor. Shocked the hell out of me. He should have subdued her in under a minute if you considered their comparative size and strength.
“Reach for the sky!” I yelled, anxious to put an end to this debacle. They both ignored me.
Rachel stretched toward the first twin but couldn’t reach him, either. She threw a handful of hay in his direction. “Wake up, Junior. You’re hopeless.”
A cane bounced off my arm, and I dropped the pistol.
“Stupid girl,” Herman said from above me. A set of headphones followed.
I sidled away from the loft ladder and picked up the gun again. Inching forward until I couldn’t miss, I pointed the gun at Lou. If I nicked Alex in the process, it was for his own good.
My hands trembled and I said in my firmest voice, “Lou, I have the gun. Stop.”
Lou and Alex froze and stared at me.
“Put that down before you kill somebody,” Lou said.
“Like you were going to do?” I backed up three steps. “I saw your face, Lou. I saw what you didn’t say.”
“I would never kill anybody. You’re amped, cookie. You might have had a little stroke, too. Anything you saw can’t be trusted.” Lou had no mask, confirming that my ability was gone, gone, gone—because I knew what I’d seen, and it had been deadly.
“I believe Cleo.” Alex eased behind Lou. Away from stray bullets or for another purpose?
“That’s sweet, Berkley, but she doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t trust any of you.” Lou held out a hand. “Cleo, I know you agree with me. Some supras are bad. They need to be controlled. The way they used you, the way they’ll continue to use you? I never, ever tried to use you, Cleo. If you don’t want to be part of that cycle, end it now. Help me work for the greater good.”
She was right. I didn’t want to be a part of that cycle. Luckily I was as human as the next clown now.
“I’ve got nothing left to help anybody with now that Herman’s machine has done its work.” My hand steadied. “But before it did, I saw that lie, too. You don’t care about the greater good, and you absolutely meant to use me.”
Lou, her gaze as sober and lacking in crazy as ever, shook her head. “The world needs protection. Yes, even from people like me. You remember the stories I told you.”
I did. Something needed to be done, but not this way. “It’s not your place to decide who deserves suprasenses and who doesn’t. Who deserves to live and who doesn’t.”
“I don’t plan to be the only decision-maker. But since we do have an effective counter-measure now, there’s no more excuse not to form a police unit.” Lou’s voice rose. We’d all heard it before but nobody realized she’d go a lot further than a semi-annual petition to see her will be done. “We have to control the perverts and the morally corrupt. The liars and the cheaters. The rapists and the murderers. You know it. Yet all you worry about is how much money you can make or who you’re going to screw next. We have these skills and we use them to better our lives, nothing else. There are criminals out there and nobody cares.”
“Oh, we care, Lou. We care what you did.” Samantha hobbled up beside me using a hoe as a cane. “I can’t believe you did this to us. To Cleo. What did she ever do to anybody? She didn’t want to be messed up in this crap, and we forced her into it, all because of you.”
My throat tightened. “And you would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for—”
“It had to be done!” Lou interrupted with a snarl. “We can’t be unprotected. Our children can’t be unprotected. We can’t be at the mercy of lowlifes and scum when we can do so much more.”
Quick as a cobra, Lou lashed out at me. Alex caught her.
She screamed and attacked him like a wildcat. I thought I might actually have to shoot her, but I didn’t get to switch from damsel to hero that day. Al and an army of large, strapping YuriCorpers screeched up in the back of the hay truck, ending the final scuffle.
Beau returned, no Clint in tow. Invisibility was useful, but it wouldn’t help chase down a larger man who had an excellent reason to run faster than he’d ever run in his life.
To escape the consequences of his bad choices. Samantha included.
I had to say, Al and his team were more effective than any of us had been, but then again, we weren’t spies. Not Alex, not John, not Beau, not Samantha, and certainly not me. We weren’t soldiers or athletes or trained guards handling a violent situation.
We were management consultants. Nothing more.
Chapter 23
Back To Never Normal Land
I got two weeks off, with pay and prescription strength pain relievers, while Yuri and Al handled the fall-out from the Lampey situation, as it came to be known.
Lou and her team had obtained most of their information by having Clint push it out of people before she erased their memories. And sold them magazines, candy and wrapping paper, on behalf of the many Lampey grade-schoolers. Proving Lou wasn’t a complete monster, the kids themselves had never been involved in data retrieval missions. Their fundraisers had just been the front. Yuri and Al had ordered a lot of doughnuts and magazines but couldn’t remember seeing many Lampey offspring.
Yuri and Al were pretty pissed at themselves. And the Lampeys.
Lou had converted many, but not all, of her extended family over the years, with a combination of personal charisma, common sense and their mutual exposure to supra crimes through the PI agency.
Persuasion and blackmail, when that failed. I wondered how she’d gotten Clint involved, considering his hatred of the whole set-up. Since he’d vanished without a trace, we’d pro
bably never know.
Jolene and a few others had tested innocent, which proved YuriCorp and the other big dogs were perfectly capable of handling supra interview without my abilities. The companies pooled their resources to bring in specialists. If Yuri had done that in the first place, how much of this mess could have been prevented?
Of course, he’d tried to do that—he’d recruited me. But I’d come so close to failure, I sure as heck didn’t feel like a success.
I hadn’t had a stroke, thank God, but every test I’d been given since the big fight displayed a complete burnout. Any babies I had could be supras, but my personal prognosis was grim. Herman’s machine could be set to cause everything from temporary power loss to brain death, or so Herman claimed.
All the scientists—everyone really—was tizzed over the ramifications.
I still had a job at YuriCorp if I wanted it, working anywhere in the strip mall I wanted. Yuri acted like he was doing me a favor with the offer. I’d keep my benefits, but not the cushy salary. He said it was only until my abilities returned, but I hadn’t needed my ability to translate his lack of faith in that happening.
Was it true? Was my lie sight the only thing I’d had to offer YuriCorp? Without it, I was under qualified, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t learn. Like the norms at the downtown office, I could get a business degree.
If that’s what I wanted out of life.
Who knew normal would be so bleak and unexciting?
As for the conspirators, the Lampey situation was a landmark event in supra history. Most of the time, supras committed crimes that could be prosecuted by norms. Crime was crime, and traditional law had sufficed. But how to explain the Lampeys’ wrongdoings to the courts in a way that would ensure the perpetrators got what they deserved? How to keep Herman’s invention, and knowledge of supras, concealed from the rest of the world?
Experts from all walks of supra life converged in an emergency “consulting conference”. Would Lou finally get her wish for a supra police squad?
I didn’t think this was how she’d planned to force everyone’s hand, but it’s not like I could ask her. Or anybody.
The only reason I knew anything was Samantha’s gossip. I longed for peace, quiet and ice cream, but she insisted on visiting me. Over and over again. Beau dragged me into the lab twice to assess my condition, and half of YuriCorp called or emailed to offer their sympathies. Most knew only that I’d been a victim of the saboteurs at the end.
I was touched, but I was still burned as toast. Crispy as bacon. Which tastes terrible on canned spaghetti, in case your reluctance to leave your apartment overcomes your common sense as much as mine did those two desolate weeks.
The only person who didn’t reach out to me was John. Unsurprising. He was in his own sickbed with a bit of a bullet situation. The one time I’d dragged my ass to see him, wondering how to break up with a man who’d been shot on my behalf, I hadn’t stayed long.
I hadn’t had to break up with him, either, because he’d dumped me within the first three minutes. I hadn’t argued. John was in a bind. He’d been told we knew about him. Had known about him. He’d lied to us, betrayed us, and even though we’d lied, too, it didn’t matter. His own guilt consumed him. He’d submitted his resignation to YuriCorp and wouldn’t discuss what he was going to do about his other employer.
Not with me, anyway. Without my skill I couldn’t do a darn thing about it.
All I could do was sit around, nurse my inner darkness, and procrastinate all decisions about my future beyond what I was going to eat next.
I was regretting my refusal of all the Lampey children’s doughnuts and cookies one afternoon when someone knocked on my door. Normally, visitors called ahead, since I appreciated a couple minutes to change out of the clothes I’d been wearing the past two days.
I did a quick stain check, confirmed several major ones on the shirt, and opened the door anyway, ice cream container in hand.
“You look like hell.” It was Beau, unaccompanied by any testing equipment. He must have been running his fade because I had no urge to jump his bones.
“Thanks so much.” I wasn’t going to let him in, but he advanced, and I retreated. “What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t answer your cell phone.”
“I think it’s dead.” I’d neglected to recharge it as a way of halting the sympathy calls. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait?”
“Wait for what, Cleo? For you to come back to work?” Beau stuck his hands on his hips and eyed my apartment like it was a toxic waste dump. Which it was. I hadn’t cleaned since before the incident, and here it was two shut-in weeks later. “We both know you’re not going to do that.”
“Yes, I am,” I said, though I had no idea if it were true. “I’ll have you know I’ve been offered a prime position at the dollar store. My first move is going to be increasing prices to two dollars. We’re going upscale.”
“You don’t have be satisfied with Yuri’s hand-out.” Beau wandered into my kitchenette and leaned against the counter. It was cleaner than the rest of the house since I’d been taking my meals on the couch or in bed. “It’s his fault this happened to you. He owes you a lot more than a crappy job at a dime store.”
As it had done too many times lately, my throat tightened at the show of support, however unexpected it was, coming from Beau. I cleared it. “A lot of supras lost their abilities while Lou was on her rampage. Several lost more than that. None of us got hazard pay.”
“None of the others were asked to do Yuri and Al’s jobs for them, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’re not internal affairs, Cleo. What did you do before you came here, work in advertising?”
I nodded, and he continued. “Expecting you to crack a conspiracy like that was ludicrous. Even considering what you could do. I don’t know what the hell they were thinking.”
I glared at him. “In case you missed the memo, I cracked it wide open. I did my part. Now it’s being taken care of.”
“Too late for you.”
“Oh, go to hell.”
Beau held out a hand, and I wasn’t sure if he wanted ice cream or a quick shake. I didn’t give him either. “I finished my simulations. Your suprasenses aren’t going to heal.”
“No shit.” I hated the squeaky quiver of my voice. “Is that supposed to shock me?”
His hand remained extended. “You’re lucky you didn’t stroke out.”
I inhaled quickly, the cloying vanilla scent of the ice cream not as appetizing as it had been when I’d opened the full container an hour ago. “Hey, if I’d had a stroke, I could have gotten brand new abilities.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Beau’s expression, for the first time since I’d met him, was compassionate. “Give me the carton.”
“I’m not done with it.” Even though he was only confirming what I’d known in my heart, my eyes stung with incipient tears. I grabbed a fresh spoon and pretended fascination with the dregs of my ice cream to keep him from knowing how upset I was.
It was never coming back. Part of me, part of who I was, was lost to me, and I didn’t know who I’d be without it.
I’d be nobody.
Instead of breathing, I shuddered.
I hurt.
I couldn’t swallow the ice cream.
“Cleo, I have to tell you—”
Whatever Beau intended to confess was interrupted by the cats. Natasha and Boris fell into a hissing match over a pizza crust Boris had found under the kitchen rug. They tumbled across the floor, biting and scratching. Natasha’s yowls were so loud you’d think Boris was ripping her apart, but the opposite was more likely.
I welcomed the feline distraction. “Cut it out, cats, there’s more pizza where that came from. Check beside the couch.” I booted them into the living room, a little embarrassed by my near breakdown.
I’d expected this, I’d seen worse in Lou’s face, so why get emotional? Norms liv
ed fulfilling lives every day. I could be one of them.
Only, I didn’t want to be normal. I wanted to be...myself.
I scraped at the ice cream carton without eating anything, and Beau crossed his arms. The only sound was the scuff of my spoon and Boris and Natasha in the other room, knocking things over. Glass tinkled. Neither of us went to check.
“What are you going to do?” he finally asked me. “Eat your life away?”
I couldn’t help my churlishness. Everyone else had been kind. Sympathetic. Why was he so mean when he alone knew the whole truth about what I’d been able to do? “What do you care?”
For a moment, he looked like he might tell me why he cared, but instead he said, “I can see you’ve got a lot going on. I just have one question.”
I paddled in my melting ice cream and refused to meet his eyes. “What?”
“Do you want it back?” he asked. “Because I can make it happen.”
“My job?”
“Your abilities.”
I put down the ice cream container and looked him full in the face for the first time since he’d walked through my door. His deep brown eyes pierced through me.
“How?”
“I have access to...” He cut himself off and began again. “When Lou and everyone assumed the supra world had no oversight, she was wrong.”
“What do you mean?” I asked for the second time today. Of course we had oversight. We spied on one another constantly, and everyone knew it. Even so, the shake-up in the community once they’d started tracing the tendrils of the Lampey infestation continued to be intense.
“There is oversight. There are people.”
He was worse than Samantha at her most coy. “I thought scientists were precise.” And more nerdy than he was today. Without the glasses and white coat—even with the fade I assumed he was running—he looked more like a musician than a lab rat. He wore the earrings today, the hippie necklace, the shirt that showed off his tattoo. And muscles.
“I can’t be more specific yet.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“Because you haven’t answered my question.” He crossed his arms, not taking his eyes off me.
