by Alex Hughes
I told the guard what I wanted.
“Is she expecting you?” the guard asked. He was a short man, skinny and pale, with the too-bright follicles of artificial hair implants. He looked harmless, but he was security for the Guild; whatever it was he could do, he wasn’t harmless.
“No,” I said. “Page her anyway.” My emotions got away from me and desperation, despair, and Swartz’s crisis leaked out into the air between us.
He shook his head, but he dialed.
And I tried to put my world in a box and sit on it, sit hard on everything that meant anything, so I’d be acceptable in the public space of telepaths.
* * *
In response to some cue I couldn’t see, the guard cleared his throat. He held out a lapel clip, a plain white square.
“What is that?”
“New recorder.” The guard held out the square again. “Standard procedure.”
“I’m not wearing that,” I said. The little square seemed suddenly dangerous, like a cobra in a plain box. No way was I going to consent to brain wave recording. No way. Not on a good day, and today . . .
“It’s all right, Tristan,” a woman’s voice said from behind me. “A plain locator should accomplish the goal here. I’ll vouch for him.”
I turned. Walking down the marble floor in quiet shoes was a woman, late fifties, small and unassuming with white, white hair pulled back in a chignon. Yes, a chignon; she insisted on the term. Despite her small size, delicate features, and obvious age, she carried herself with confidence. Well, maybe “confidence” wasn’t the right word. The attitude of a woman carrying a big, crass, brightly painted grenade launcher, with an antiaircraft laser attachment for good measure? That. With a string of pearls. Let’s just say she got what she wanted more often than she didn’t, one way or the other.
Jamie wasn’t flashy; she didn’t go out of her way to weigh Mindspace, to loom over the minds around her. In fact, she did the opposite, holding herself back, still, quiet. But the wake her mind made even so . . . The ripples altered the feel of the room in subtle ways, no matter how still she stood. Jamie was a Level Ten telepath, one of two in the world, and the strongest telepath I’d ever met. Strong enough to crush me like a soap bubble, if she caught me unaware. She was also—or had been—my mentor, the one who’d taught me what it meant to be a telepath, what it meant to be a responsible, ethical professional in a sea of pretenders. Other than the short moment at the funeral, I hadn’t seen her since rehab.
“If you’re sure, Ms. Skelton,” the guard said.
She nodded to him. “I assume you’re here to see Kara?”
I nodded, most of my energy spent on not broadcasting my turmoil. . . .
Apparently some of it leaked out anyway, because she looked sad. “Her office is at the end of the new wing. I’ll take you there.”
“Thanks.” I held myself as tightly as I could, like a tuning fork against a chair. Finally: It’s good to see you too. I—
I’m glad you came back, she returned, with a wave of warmth and cautious affection. Her mental voice, as always, felt like lemonade on a hot day, blowing grass under a blazing sun. I always . . . well, I’d hoped you would find your way back. Back to the Guild, she meant. But more, back to real life. I felt her decide not to mention the current state of my mind. I was clean, she could tell that much, and that was enough.
“This is just a visit,” I clarified. “I’m not coming back to the Guild.”
A small dot of concern and curiosity; then she pulled them back from the air. “Well, even so,” she said out loud. It’s good to see you.
“It’s good to see you too.”
She held out a hand, wordlessly offering a little strength, free of charge. She could see how empty I was running.
I looked at her for a long moment, and I then I took her hand, and the strength, a small stream of raw mental power scented with her sunshine-and-ozone self. It was over nearly before it began.
She lowered the hand and kept walking, without comment. She hadn’t taken anything—even information—from me in return.
I realized all at once there were things I missed about the Guild.
Thank you.
* * *
I knocked on the doorframe as Jamie’s mind moved away behind me.
Kara was seated behind a curved white glass desk, a small pencil cup and a picture frame the only things on the surface besides the papers she was working on. She looked good today, with a recent haircut, precise makeup, and a poufy ivory blouse.
She looked up. “Adam. Look, I’m sorry, your certi-
fication will definitely not be renewed, not even if the watcher certifies you as trustworthy. I don’t know what you heard—”
I cut her off, my desperation making none of that important. “Swartz is dying. My sponsor. Swartz. He’s dying, and I need you to arrange for a medic. A microkinesis Guild-trained medic.” I put my hands behind my head. “I need you to come through for me, Kara. You owe me this.”
She stood, gestured to the chair in front of her. “Sit down, okay?”
“I don’t want to sit down, I want you to get me a medic.”
“Sit down.”
I stood there, staring at her.
“What kind of medic?” she asked quietly.
“Cardiac. Heart attack, with some kind of additional damage that means he can’t have an artificial heart. Some kind of complications from his drug use years ago.”
She closed her eyes, just for a second. “It had to be cardiac. Adam, the Guild is short on cardiac medics. There are three in the country, and two are traveling in high-profile areas right now. The third is working on the president’s uncle, who is also dying. There’s no way I can do it.”
I moved forward until my thighs hit the front of her desk. “You have to. This is Swartz. Kara, I have never treated you badly for betraying me. For getting me kicked out of the Guild. For ruining my life. I have never—but you owe me this. You owe me more than this.”
It was like her face opened, her heart ripping out as I saw her sorrow and deep, deep regret like crimson lines painted in Mindspace between us. “You should not have been kicked out,” she said, eyes glistening with half-shed tears. “I swear to you, I never thought it would be like that. You should have been cleaned up and given help. But even so. It was the right thing to do. The right thing to do, and you would have done the same.” She took a breath.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t say sorry lightly; every time was like rehab. Maybe she was right, but: “Swartz is dying.”
She turned away, looked out the window, let the silence sit as the wheels turned in her head. Finally she turned back. “I can’t do the impossible, Adam. I wish with all my heart I could. If I tried—if I tried, it would be my career and your head both.”
“I don’t care.” I was no lightweight, and for Swartz, for Swartz I’d fight all comers. “You want to do the right thing, Kara? This is the right damn thing!” I was almost yelling, emotions radiating out. I had no control left. The hospital, the damn hospital and Swartz’s illness, had stolen my control and now my eyes were watering again.
Kara met my gaze, her eyes watering too. “Even if I tried, odds are your mentor will still not get the help he needs.”
Now I sat down in the chair, staring at my hands. “I—”
“There is one thing I could try. But you won’t like the consequences.”
“Do it.”
* * *
Stone entered the room with an angry gait. He was holding a length of sticky cord, a restraint, down at his side. His body language was wary.
“Thank you for coming.” Kara sat on the side of her desk, hands resting on its edge. “I have a proposition that gets you the tag you wanted.”
What? I yelled at her mentally. We still had a faint Link left over from years ago; Stone wouldn’t be a
ble to overhear a Link. I’m not getting any—
Shut up and let me work.
“I’m listening,” Stone said, his eyes darting back and forth between us. I sat, Kara stood, but our body language and relative positions had to look like a united front against him.
“Adam will consent to a voluntary—temporary—tag.” Kara’s diction was extremely precise. “For the length of this particular inquiry, and will consent to periodic mental checks and the release of his private information and current employment files to Enforcement for the purposes of your investigation, provided all tags and checks end when your determination is made. You’ll get full access to my records and Adam’s private record from the Guild training facility, and one—count it, one—interview with me about our past. In return, you will provide your private Enforcement medic to treat . . . “ She paused here and looked at me.
“Jonathon Swartz,” I offered, nerves stretched almost to the breaking point.
“Jonathon Swartz, Adam’s mentor, who is currently dying of cardiac issues. Within the next forty-eight hours. Said treatment to be the best available. Your Enforcement medic is cross-trained in trauma of all kinds, I am fully aware, and according to my information he is also currently in town and unassigned. The terms of this deal are contingent on timely care.”
Stone thought about it for a second, looked at me.
“If you’ll save Swartz I’ll do anything you want and gladly.”
“The medic is available,” he said cautiously.
Relief hit like a long, cold drink of water. Maybe, maybe this was going to work. Maybe I could save Swartz. “Thank you, Kara. I . . .”
She looked me straight in the eye. “For the record, I don’t owe you anything.”
I nodded. “This is more than—”
“No. I don’t owe you anything because it was the right thing to do. And this—this was the right thing too.” She looked at the clock and stood up, suddenly exhausted. “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave my office. I have an urgent meeting in ten minutes I have to be ready for.”
“Thank you,” I told her.
She nodded, and suddenly was hugging me. I got a glimpse of her mind, her satisfaction at a deal well made and sadness—quiet sadness. “I’m sorry about Swartz. I really am. He’s been sending me updates on you every month for years. He’s a good man.” Then she glanced toward the door, concerned about time.
“I’m going,” I said. “I’m going right now.”
Swartz had sent her updates?
* * *
Stone and I walked down the hall, to a small alcove under a window at the end. A statue of the Guild founder, Cooper, sat on top of the small table there. I reached out and straightened the statue; his code of ethics still meant a lot to me.
“You realize it’s not going to be that easy,” Stone told me.
“What?” Suddenly my stomach was bad in free fall. “Why the hell not?”
His body language seemed aggressive suddenly, and I was on full alert, ready to fight. I would be hard-pressed not to lose, and even if through some miracle I survived, in the middle of the Guild building . . . well, I wouldn’t get far afterward.
But he only fidgeted with the sticky cord where I could see him, a threat, but a veiled one. “A cardiac medic is the most expensive commodity in the Guild stable right now. And you’re getting someone with similar skills, better skills maybe, as he’s versed in trauma and recovery. What you’re offering in return is not nearly worth what you’re getting.”
He was bargaining with a life. A normal life. A sudden, horrible thought occurred to me. “If the Guild had anything, anything to do with—”
“No,” Stone said at once, looking discomfited. “No, we wouldn’t—I wouldn’t. Not randomly and not without cause. And not, on first choice, to a noncombatant. I have some ethics.”
“You’d say that even if it was you.” I didn’t bother to hide my cynicism. “And I’ve already blocked your investigation at least once and promised you I’d do it again. This plays right into your hands.”
“I swear on the Guild founders that this was neither me nor anyone else acting on behalf of the Guild. Demand any proof you like. This was not me.”
Every interrogator instinct in me said he was telling the truth. And even if he wasn’t I still needed what he offered. “You swear it?”
“I do, on any oath you name.”
“What do you need to make up the difference?”
He straightened a bit. “It’s a large difference. I don’t know what will make that debt work.”
He was fleecing me. I could see him setting me up like a mark on the street. But the trouble was, I needed what he was offering and according to Kara—whom I believed—there was no way else to get it. “Fine, we’ll call it a debt. But I need the medic, and I need it now.”
“We do the tag first.”
“Temporary,” I stipulated. My stomach roiled. To have somebody able to check on me at any moment of any day . . . I already had Swartz, I told myself, Swartz and Bellury checking up on me. But if I wanted to keep Swartz, it had to be done. “A fully removable tag. You know I’m strong enough—and trained enough—to check.”
He nodded.
I swallowed.
“It’s standard procedure. And I will check at random. But this isn’t my first case, or my thirtieth, and I’m fair. After the first few seconds you’ll know I’m there. I’m not cruel and I’m not invasive. If I don’t understand something or it looks suspicious, I will look for more information before I make a determination.”
I nodded, the fear still there, but tempered.
If it was anybody but Swartz . . . Swartz, who’d picked me up when I was a punk and convinced me I could be better. That I could have a chance at a real life again. Swartz, who’d dragging me kicking and screaming into a place where self-respect was possible, and happened. Swartz, who kicked me in the ass when I thought about going sideways. “Swartz needs the medic now. Now, or it’s useless to him and me both.”
I let him put the tag on me, squirming and jittery the whole time. And there it was, a square patch of his mind sitting on the right side of mine. A square patch of not-me, something a shield couldn’t stop. Like a boil sitting on the top of my mental skin, painful and swollen and all too firmly attached.
“Try to block me,” Stone said.
So I did, hard.
But, out of my control, there he was. It’s working, the stranger said, inside all my defenses. I tried to throw him out, I tried to expel him like food poisoning, like vomit, but— Calm down. Calm. It’s okay.
I took a breath, then another, tolerating him like a bit in my mouth.
And then he was gone.
“I’ll be checking in on you in random intervals for at least a week, likely longer, considering your history.”
Then he opened the door and let me go. I kept looking over my shoulder as I walked out the door and down to the elevators. Kept looking, and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Swartz was going to get the help he needed, right?
* * *
On the way out of the building, when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did.
I was walking through the middle of the huge open glass-and-steel atrium in the center of the main skyscraper, the central glass elevator tubes extending like the spine of some huge animal above me, tiered floors all around. And there, not far from the elevator, in a crowd of folks dressed in office clothes, was Tamika. She was staring at me with accusing eyes.
And I turned around and left, in the fastest walk I could manage. Acid burned in my gut, a sharp pain like a fillet knife dragging my gut, so I left. Like the coward I was.
CHAPTER 16
Back at the department, I snuck past Cherabino’s cubicle and went farther back into the secure area, the really se
cure area, past the new plastic sheeting separating their airflow from ours. Something about wanting to contain contagions. Honestly, computer viruses had only morphed to infect non-Tech-implanted humans once, and we had vaccines now; separate air for four cubicles was overkill. I mean, if we were all going to die, we would have died by now. But there was no telling the head of Electronic Crimes that.
I was carrying a piece of paper with all the information we knew about the strangler, written in nice, clear, large block letters, arranged logically by type and logic. I was out of time, out of patience, with a vision riding on my back and a tag in my head. If I wanted to save Swartz, to save my job and find Emily’s killer, I had to act. I had to make this happen—me, no waiting for anyone else.
The cubicle I needed was the second on the right, currently full of the large bulk of a man.
“Hey, Bob,” I said.
“What now?” Bob turned. He was a balding caricature of an aging cop, the kind who went four steps after a suspect, then collapsed into a panting mess. Bob didn’t have to chase suspects on foot, though; and he was as stubborn as a bulldog about getting the answers you were looking for in a much, much more dangerous space than just the street. Bob dealt with the Net, the tiny, dangerous, cracked remains of the data-soaked superhighway that had once ruled the world. In that space, he was a cowboy, a cowboy with an Uzi and an attitude, and the power he held sat badly on that pudgy body, disturbing as hell and twice as dangerous.
Bob had an implant—a real, honest-to-God computer implant—in the back of his neck that tapped directly into his brain, and he was one of the youngest people I’d ever seen with a legal one. When untold thousands of people had died in a rash of wetware viruses and electrical burnouts during the Tech Wars, well, implants weren’t so popular anymore.
“Something you needed, genius?” Bob asked with a scowl.
“I have a new problem for you.”
His eyes lit up, and he grabbed the paper out of my hand. Twenty-eight seconds while he processed the text, implant-aided sight making short work of the information. The computer screen behind him flashed strings of numbers, images of snakes and trees, and a few disturbingly vivid crime scene photos. It stayed on the last, the brown-red pool of blood by a woman’s bare feet, a picture from the scene I’d seen a few days ago.
