The Green Memory of Fear

by B. A. Chepaitis

  They were an anomaly, born to evil in a universe that preferred the good. And their relationship to pedophiles was, theoretically at least, complex.

  “While all Greenkeepers are pedophiles,” he said, “Not all pedophiles are Greenkeepers. Greenkeepers have lots of psi capacities—Telekinesis, shapeshifting, hypnopathy, Protean change—and pedophiles don’t. Of course, one Greenkeeper can do damage on a scale beyond the pedophile’s wildest dream, because theoretically they live as long as they keep feeding. And they rarely transform those they feed from. They just bind them at an energy level so they’ll go on to become destructive, but without the powers of their master. That means pedophiles could be former victims of Greenkeepers, bound but not transformed.”

  “What happened to the ones brought in during the Killing Times?” she asked.

  “You mean the ones who claimed they were Greenkeepers?” he amended.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Those, if you insist on reasonable doubt.”

  Alex held his hands palm up. “They disappeared.”

  She nodded, as if she expected this answer.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “You disappeared, too. More than ten million people disappeared, one way and another. Everything was in chaos.”

  The Killing Times they’d both survived—she as a teenager, he as a young man—left the major cities of North America in upheaval for years. The rise in serial killing from which it derived its name was followed by uncontainable violence, domestic terrorism, burning and death. Keeping track of mythical Greenkeepers was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

  “Besides,” he added, “even Davidson admits there’s no actual proof of their existence. All the evidence is anecdotal. Like ghost stories and UFOs.”

  “Sexual abuse stats plunged like a rock after the Killing Times,” she said, “and now they’re climbing again, along with incidence of violent crime in children.”

  As usual, she knew her facts. In the last year New York state alone put ten children on trial for murder. He’d sat on two committee meetings to discuss whether juvies should go to the Planetoids. Jaguar said they should send the parents up instead.

  “Are you suggesting a Greenkeeper’s responsible for that?” he asked.

  “I’m speculating about possibilities, great and small. Does Davidson offer any ideas for capture or cure?”

  “No cure. There is none. And capture is difficult. Theoretically they can regenerate wounds rapidly, so bullets won’t work. If you keep one locked up long enough without feeding maybe they’ll dissipate for lack of energy—a kind of starvation—but try keeping them locked up if they really can shapeshift. Stories say salt burns them—a bad interaction with their biochem—but it won’t kill them. Also they fear snakes because systemic poisoning makes quick regeneration difficult. But according to Davidson the only viable way to deal with them is your ancestor’s treatment.”

  “Which one?”

  “Rip their hearts out,” he said. “Basically you have to do enough damage rapidly enough that they can’t regenerate. Getting as close as you need to do that without being killed is the tough part. You only get one shot at a Greenkeeper.”

  “Right,” she said. Then, “How do you happen to have all this information at your fingertips?” she asked. “Idle curiosity?”

  He was going to try that answer, but since she’d anticipated it, he went for the truth instead. “About a week ago I picked up Davidson and read it through,” he answered. “I don’t know what impelled me, but it did seem important at the time.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him. He understood the question in her face, which asked whether this was from Adept space, a precognitive sense that this knowledge would be needed soon. In the absence of a definite answer he merely shrugged.

  She accepted that in silence. She stood and walked over to the window, where she stared out over the replica city of Toronto, built to mimic the original for this zone of Planetoid 3. The sun was dipping over the horizon, the buildings washed in soft gold.

  “I still want to know why you’re interested,” he noted. “If you think your current prisoner shows tendencies that way, that’d be important.”

  “No. Nothing like that. Just—the book fell off the shelf.”

  He supposed that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else, but he understood. Empaths were trained to pay attention to small signals. When books leapt off shelves at your feet, you picked them up and read them, even if there didn’t seem any reason to do so. Later, you might find out that part of the shelf wasn’t level. Or you might find this was exactly the information you needed. Either way, knowing the reason behind her curiosity settled his nerves, for now. It could also explain his sudden interest in reading the same book. Their history together included a great deal of close empathic contact, and that sometimes created interesting synchronicities.

  “Did you like the Davidson book?” she asked after a while.

  “Very much. It’s an evil kind of creature, but her writing’s always beautiful, so it’s worth the read. I think,” he noted more philosophically, “beauty may be the only antidote there is to evil.”

  “That’s a romantic notion,” she said.

  “Then I’m a romantic. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  His tone gave him away. She turned to him, her face full of questions. She started with the most obvious one. “You didn’t come over to talk about vampires, did you?”

  He leaned back and asked his breathing to normalize itself, asked his heart rate to slow down. After all their circling dance, today he was ready to call some new steps. It wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be.

  They shared friends and work and knowledge in the empathic arts. They shared assignments and risks and rescues. One way and another, they spent more time together than apart. Their high regard for each other had even survived sleeping together. And here he was, skittish as spit on a griddle about asking her out.

  “No. I wanted to see if you’d like to have dinner with me,” he said.

  She tried to absorb the question and failed. It was already past dinnertime. “Dinner?” she repeated.

  “Later this week. I was thinking La Loba. You said you like their Tequila.”

  He saw complexities cross her thoughts as she chewed the inside of her lip. She wasn’t getting it.

  “I’m asking you out, Jaguar,” he said, his voice like gravel in his throat. “On a date.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

  And then, silence, as she stared at her hands.

  At least, he thought, he had the satisfaction of seeing her shocked into speechlessness. That was a rare and precious moment. He savored it briefly, then asked, “Is Thursday good? ”

  She conducted another interview with her emotions, and although they weren’t in empathic contact, he could guess the nature of her thoughts. They probably weren’t much different than his, which asked him repeatedly what confused sense of chivalry impelled him to do this.

  He had other options. She’d be amenable to something casual, to being intermittent lovers with no strings attached. They’d stay friends and nothing much would change. And she wouldn’t push if he let it drop altogether. Eventually it would disappear, swallowed by his favorite ally, time. But to try and establish something real between them could be pure and gallant stupidity of the most egregious kind. To say I want this, and I want it real was probably the last thing she expected, and the most foolhardy thing he could do.

  He waited, while her internal conversation rounded itself out to resolution.

  “I’m singing with Moon Illusion on Thursday,” she said at last. She regularly sang with this band of former prisoners so it was a valid excuse, but his disappointment was sharp. He was debating what to say next when she breached the gulf of silence.

  “How’s Wednesday?” she asked.

  He let his pulse steady itself, then raised himself from his chair to leave.

  “Wednesday’s good,” he said. “See you about
seven, if that’s okay.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Seven’s fine. See you then.”

  He thought about saying more, but she’d already turned away. Enough, he thought. Enough for now.

  He moved toward the door, and let himself out.

  Chapter 2

  The Planetoid atmosphere, created through a mass generator, had spit out a hot day. On Wednesday morning Jaguar stood in heavy humidity on Yonge street, staring at a bronze and gold silk pantsuit in a store window as the sun pressed against the back of her neck.

  She’d woken early to finish her final report on her last assignment, then decided to take care of a few errands downtown. She was almost done when she was captured by the outfit in the window of Wild Child Boutique.

  She pressed a hand against the glass. Shimmering bronze and gold washed silk, pants and sleeveless top, perfectly cut. Simple as air.

  “That would look so good on me,” she murmured. The color worked for her eyes and complexion, the silk was good for her skin, and the cut was right for her lean and muscular body. It looked comfortable, too. Easy to wear, without too many moving parts.

  She went into the store, found her size, and tried it on. When she emerged, she was bearing a package and smiling. A good day. Her work was done, and the outfit was hers.

  A steamy breeze ruffled the hair at the back of her neck in a friendly way. She tilted her head back and took in a good breath. She’d spent her adolescence in New Mexico, her childhood in Manhattan. She knew the heat of the mesas, the crowded streets, and the sweat lodge, and she liked them all. Today’s heat in particular seemed to hold a promise she wanted to take in, though she couldn’t name it. Whatever it was, it made her steps light and easy.

  She went through her mental lists of other tasks to perform. License renewal, a physical training session. Maybe tonight she’d have dinner with her friend Rachel.

  But no. There was something else she was supposed to do tonight. She frowned, trying to recapture elusive memory. Something important, she thought. Something she had a nagging feeling she was nervous about, which might be why she was inclined to forget it. The air tickled her neck, and the sun patted warmly at her back. It would come to her. If not, she’d look it up on her calendar when she got home. She hoped she remembered to put it in. She walked on.

  As she neared the Teacher’s building where she’d go for training she felt a drop in heat. She glanced up and saw dark clouds clustering over the high buildings. She stopped at a corner and peered up at them. If it was a storm, it was moving fast. Like great shadows of wings flying low over the buildings.

  She glanced at the people walking past her. They smiled and nodded, no disturbance in their faces. She turned back to the darkening sky and felt an encroaching cold wrap her skin. Not a cloud. Something living. Something unpleasant. She wanted to run, get under cover fast because this felt like terror about to swallow her whole. Then, a voice, stopping her.

  Jaguar. Here.

  That voice. She’d heard it in her apartment not too long ago. The voice of a little girl.

  Jaguar.

  She held herself still against her own fear. “Who is it?” she asked.

  It’s me, Jaguar. Here. Look.

  She scanned the street to her left, her right, behind her. Traffic moved along the road and overhead. People passed, heels clicking against cement. They noticed nothing wrong. Whatever was going on was just for her.

  Right in front of you. It’s me.

  There. Dead ahead, standing in the middle of the sidewalk facing her.

  A little girl, maybe eleven years old, wearing a grey and red checked dress. No shoes. Long mousy hair partially obscuring a very pale heart-shaped face, with large dark eyes, eyes full of shadows. Behind her, darkness shimmered, as if she’d emerged from it.

  There weren’t many children here. The facilities for accommodating them were limited, so seeing a child alone on the streets was unusual. Even more unusual was her dress.

  “That’s my dress,” Jaguar murmured. “I had that dress.”

  She remembered the pattern and texture. It was her favorite. She was wearing it when she ran out of her apartment in Manhattan, leaving her grandparent’s dead bodies behind.

  “Why are you wearing my dress?” she called and the girl turned and scampered away.

  Jaguar trotted after her, reaching out subvocally. Wait. Tell me what you want. Don’t run away.

  Again that laughter, watery and bright. Jaguar kept moving, pushing people out of her way as she went. The girl turned a corner and Jaguar followed until she found herself in a long alley. The girl stood at the far end. She lifted her hand and pointed down.

  Look, Jaguar. For you.

  Jaguar looked down. A newspaper had wrapped itself around her ankle. She reached for it and saw a headline.

  PSYCHIATRIST TO STAND TRIAL.

  Under the headline was a picture of a man who was perhaps fifty, more or less. He held a hand out in a gesture of negation. Warding off journalists, Jaguar thought. His name was Dr. Thomas Senci.

  She grabbed the paper and held it up to ask the little girl about it, but she was gone. And when Jaguar looked down at her hand, so was the newspaper.

  She rubbed her fingers together. They could still feel the paper between them. She looked down the alley. Nobody was there. She was alone. She scanned the sky. The darkness was gone, too. She walked back onto the street.

  Somebody, she thought, wanted to tell her something. “Okay,” she murmured. “I’ll bite.”

  It was easy enough for her to find out about Dr. Senci. If he was standing trial for anything serious he’d already be in the Planetoid files. They tracked all cases that might end up here.

  She stopped and hailed a cab, which took her to the Planetoid offices. Once inside, she made her way to the computer research room in the basement, found a screen and punched in her code.

  “May I be of assistance?” the computer asked.

  “No vocalization, please,” Jaguar said before she could stop herself. Alex always said please to the computers and apparently she’d caught the habit, though she’d told him the computer didn’t give a rat’s ass. He did, he said. It reminded him of the importance of courtesy.

  “Voicebox shutdown,” the computer said, and was silent.

  Jaguar went to the prelim area and keyed in the name Senci. The same picture she’d seen in the newspaper appeared on screen, along with information on his case. The charges—child molestation—made it clear why he was in their files already. All pedophiles were shunted to the Planetoid system these days, and most of them to Planetoid 3. What they did was much more effective than anything the home planet could offer, and the home planet was glad enough to get rid of them.

  Dr. Thomas Senci, a neuropsychologist, was being charged with sexual abuse of a twelve year old boy who was his patient. That charge was seen as more pertinent in Planetoid terms because Senci had also recently been investigated for murder conspiracy because four of his other patients, all boys between the ages of 12 and 16, had gone on a killing spree, spreading laser fire around a fast-food restaurant. When the body count was totaled fourteen people were dead, including the boys, who had killed themselves.

  One remaining patient—a boy of 13—said Dr. Senci asked him to participate in the killing but he refused. That boy’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia ended up discrediting his claim, so the charges against Senci weren’t pursued, but they made the Provincial prosecuting attorney more amenable to trying the new charge of sexual abuse. The identity of the boy charging him was being shielded from the public. Further reading told her Senci’s information had already gone to the testers, which meant odds were high for a conviction.

  Jaguar contemplated the face on the computer screen and asked the imaging program to turn it half right. This gave her a projected image of his full face. She considered it, and requested hard copy of that, and his folder. Medical records, fingerprints, employment history, one more photo, rolled out of the print
er. There was as yet no psychological profile.

  Staring at his photo gave her a slight queasiness, and a feeling of something familiar. Had she seen him somewhere? She was generally good at remembering faces, but she couldn’t place this one. She put it away and went back to the computer screen. If she chased it, it would elude her. Whatever it was would be visible in time.

  The end of the report gave a place where Planetoid researchers could sign up if they were interested in conducting the preliminary research. Whoever got the job would do interviews, create a personality profile and a narrative account of the trial, slated for two weeks hence, for use here if he was convicted.

  Her hand paused. She didn’t do research. She was a Teacher, not a note taker. So she always said. Somewhere in the empty room, she heard a scuttling sound.

  Are you ready, Jaguar?

  The queasiness grew stronger. Her hands moved on the keys, typing her name in.

  “Ready when you are,” she answered.

  * * * *

  The next person to visit the computers was team member Rachel Shofet, who was updating preliminary files for her zone.

  Rachel always claimed she hadn’t a bit of empath in her. She was just lucky. In this case, she was utilizing the bank of computers only because her own was getting its annual servicing today. And though she had no idea she’d just missed Jaguar, didn’t notice the keyboards were still warm from her fingers, couldn’t pick up on what an empath would detect as the most obvious signs of her presence, she did notice the Senci case had an applicant for prelimary researcher.

  “Jaguar?” she asked it. Something odd there. She’d been both a coworker and friend to Jaguar for many years, and knew she never took research assignments.

  Rachel tapped on the desk and thought. She usually sent files electronically to Alex’s computer so he could look at them on his own schedule and dole out assignments accordingly. This one she printed out as hard copy, and walked it upstairs to his office.