by Myke Cole
Grace was joined by Noah Weiss, her Director of Research, a short, nervous-looking man who did the best impression of an anthropomorphized penguin that Harlequin had ever seen, complete with bald head, beak of a nose, and thick middle, all covered in a black-and-white suit that even got the color right.
Grace gave deference to Crucible’s rank by addressing him, but her eyes kept straying to Harlequin, the smile never entirely leaving her face.
‘Well,’ she said, her lips trembling slightly, ‘isn’t this awkward?’
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ Crucible said. ‘We’re a small corps, and this is frequently the way the military gets things done. We’re not entirely up to speed on the operation, but I assure you that we’ll be able points of contact for you once we get everything smoothed out.’
‘Can you get us subjects?’ Weiss said, leaning across the table. ‘I mean, I don’t really see the need for any kind of liaison with the SOC, to be frank. We’ve got perfectly adequate security here, and . . .’
Grace placed a hand lightly on his cuff, and his voice stopped as quickly as if she’d stolen the air from his lungs.
‘Mr. Weiss is merely enthusiastic to move forward with clinical trials. He understands, as we all do, that the military will be our largest customer,’ she said.
‘If this stuff does what you say it does,’ Crucible said, ‘the SOC will be your only customer.’
The smile vanished. ‘This compound offers unprecedented control over the brain’s limbic system,’ she said. ‘The arcane applications are undeniable. But so are the antipsychotic applications, or what it could offer as an alternative to serotonin reuptake inhibitors. There is a universe of possible therapeutic effects.’
‘Ma’am, I . . .’ Crucible began.
‘We approached you,’ Grace cut him off, ‘out of good faith, and to continue Noah’s line, in the hope that you would provide us with test subjects for clinical trials. Rats don’t come up Latent, Major. We need to test this on humans. But allow me to remind you that we are a private corporation with the right to sell whatever we want to whomever we want. The SOC does not get to swoop in here and take possession of the product. You are dealing with a company with a lot of money and the kind of lawyers that kind of money can hire. Keep that in mind.’
The major patted the air with his palms. ‘Take it easy, ma’am. Those kinds of calls get made way above my pay grade. We’re here to be liaisons and to ensure security for the lab.’
‘Be liaisons?’ Weiss asked. ‘What the hell does that even mean?’
‘It means,’ Harlequin cut in, ‘that magic is serious business, and if you’ve got a drug that has a real chance of making an impact on how we use it, then the government has a vested interest. That means you work with us. Selfers don’t like working with us, so they run. That’s when they call people like me. By the time that happens, it’s too late to be cooperative.’
Grace’s smile returned, along with her frank look. Weiss blanched and looked at his lap, sputtering. ‘There are contracting concerns . . .’
‘Which will be handled by a government contracting officer,’ Crucible said. ‘Neither of us has that role. Can you help us to better understand what those are so we can convey that information more accurately to the folks who will eventually talk money with you?’
Weiss exchanged looks with Grace, who nodded, then punched a button. An invisible seam in the wood slid back, and a monitor rose out of the center of the table, propelled by silent motors. The windows darkened. Some kind of chemical tint, Harlequin guessed.
The monitor flashed into life, showing a series of ovals layered with colored blotches.
‘What are we looking at?’ Harlequin asked.
‘These are brain scans of rhesus macaques from upstairs,’ Weiss said, gesturing to a set of ovals almost completely covered in bright red splashes of color. ‘They’ve been placed under a degree of emotional stress: brief separation from their mothers, having food displayed, then taken away. That kind of stimulus activates the limbic center in the brain,’ Weiss said. ‘You get emotional. The colors range from dark blue for low activity to bright red for high activity. As you can see, these brains are showing a tremendous amount of activity in the limbic system.’
He addressed the next set of ovals on the other half of the monitor. The color overlays showed mostly blue, with some red flashes interspersed throughout. ‘That’s after the application of the New Chemical Entity, what we’re currently calling LL-14.’
‘So, it suppresses emotion,’ Harlequin said.
‘Well, sort of,’ Weiss said. ‘Look at this.’
He brought up a video showing one of the monkeys being placed into a cage with another. The upper-right corner of the screen showed one of the colored ovals, mostly dark. ‘This monkey is being introduced into the cage of a rival male. He’s on a heavy dose of LL-14. The treated monkeys are a line we call “lambda”. The other male is untreated, from our “control” line.’
The two monkeys stared at one another through the clear Plexiglas of the cage. The control monkey was intent, teeth bared. Every muscle was poised. The lambda monkey appeared calm, aware of its rival but not overly interested in it.
‘They’re going to fight,’ Crucible said.
‘That’s what happens in nature, yes,’ Weiss answered. ‘Watch.’
The barrier was lifted, and the lambda monkey pushed into the cage. The control monkey was on it in an instant, flailing with its long arms, gnashing sharp teeth, shrieking. ‘Watch the brain activity,’ Weiss said, gesturing to the colored oval.
The lambda monkey hesitated for an instant. But only an instant. There was a brief and tiny flash of red on the very edge of the oval, then the center bloomed as if an artery had popped. The entire shape turned red as the lambda monkey answered blow for blow, clawing and biting its rival. It flung the control monkey into the back of the cage and fell on it, biting and clawing, as handlers wearing shoulder-length padded gloves and helmets reached into the cage and dragged it out, leaving the undrugged rival in a bloody heap.
The moment the danger was past, the lambda monkey went placid in the handler’s arms, the colors vanishing from the brain imagery, going dark and placid as it had been before the fight began.
‘Okay,’ Crucible said. ‘That’s . . . so it’s not emotional . . . until it is.’
Grace laughed, but Weiss was deadly serious. ‘That’s the point. That flash of activity you saw? On the edge of the brain? We keep seeing that just before the emotional center in the limbic triggers for monkeys on LL-14.’
‘What does it mean?’ Harlequin asked.
‘We’re still figuring that out,’ Grace answered, ‘but we’re fairly sure that was the brain’s neocortex, where primates engage in logical decision-making. We’ve seen that activity on a consistent, repeatable basis. The animal can access its emotional center when it needs to, but we believe it’s only on the basis of a rational decision, such as to defend oneself when under attack. No posturing, no bravado. Just action when it’s required.’
‘Emotional when you need to be,’ Crucible breathed.
‘To evoke magic when you need to and put it away when you’re done,’ Harlequin added. ‘Holy shit, that’s . . .’
Weiss raised his hands. ‘That’s preliminary, is what that is. We need clinical trials. We need to try this on Latent people.’
Harlequin exchanged a glance with Crucible. ‘You can’t expect us to turn SOC personnel, even Rump Latents, into lab rats. We could certainly put out a call for volunteers, but I’m not even sure that the Joint Service Surgeon General would approve that. That’s the kind of thing Congress would probably want to debate . . .’
Crucible’s voice was steel. ‘Let me make some calls. We can probably have a subject available within the week.’
Harlequin’s jaw dropped. ‘Sir . . .�
��
Crucible’s boot collided sharply with Harlequin’s shin under the table. The motion wasn’t totally obvious, but Grace and Weiss couldn’t have failed to see the surprise on Harlequin’s face.
Weiss looked shocked, but Grace smiled knowingly, her eyes dancing. Shame and fury boiled in Harlequin’s gut, and he pushed back against his magical tide.
‘Well, that’s delightful,’ Grace said. ‘What else do you need from us?’
‘That presentation,’ Crucible said, ‘along with any other evidentiary documents I can submit to my command. I’ll also need a promise that not a word of this conversation leaves this room. I’ll have nondisclosure agreements for you to sign by close of business today. Does anyone else know about this meeting?’
Grace and Weiss made eye contact, looked back at Crucible. ‘Our conference scheduler, the shareholder liaison officer, and another of my senior VPs,’ she said, ‘and none of them think it’s anything more than an “exploratory discussion.” We’ve kept the initial findings, the drug’s efficacy, on lockdown.’
‘My team knows of the success of the research,’ Weiss added, ‘but not that we’re talking to you.’
‘Okay,’ Crucible said. ‘We’ll be having all of them sign NDAs, too. You’ll tell them this meeting was unproductive. We’re not interested.’
‘But . . .’ Weiss began.
Grace silenced him with a look. ‘We can do that,’ she said. ‘When do we hear from you next?’
‘Hopefully,’ Crucible replied, ‘tomorrow. If this shows as much promise to my command as it does to me, I think they’re going to want to move very quickly indeed.’
‘I’m very much looking forward to that,’ she said.
‘One more request,’ Crucible added. ‘Let me have the room alone with my colleague here for a few minutes.’
Grace and Weiss nodded and stood. ‘We’ll be upstairs in my office. Just have the receptionist buzz us when you’re done. Let him know if you need water or crackers or anything. I’m really looking forward to seeing both of you’ – she gave Harlequin a pointed glance – ‘later.’
Then she was gone, Weiss trailing at her heels, their strained silence palpable until the conference-room doors closed behind them.
Crucible turned back to Harlequin, steepled his fingers. ‘I’m really sorry about that, Jan. You tripped over some stuff that you’re . . . not privy to yet.’
Harlequin pushed back on his anger. ‘I gathered. What was all that?’
‘We can give them a subject. The Selfer you took down last night.’
Harlequin stared. ‘The . . . sir, we just captured her. What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about, Jan. Gatanas is going to flip when he sees this presentation. He’s going to want this drug in our dispensaries yesterday. Can you imagine? Being able to guarantee control over your magical current? Accessing it whenever and however you wanted? No danger of going nova?’
As if to prove Crucible’s point, Harlequin again pushed back on the surge of his magical tide, borne on the sudden feeling that he didn’t know Crucible at all, coupled with the lingering embarrassment over being shut down in front of Grace.
‘Jesus, Jan. What do you think we do with Selfers?’ Crucible asked.
Harlequin’s lips felt numb. ‘They go into Suppression at Quantico. In some cases, they’re executed.’
‘Right.’ Crucible nodded. ‘All of them? Even the Probes? These people are legally dead, Jan. They have no rights. Understanding and controlling magic is the biggest priority on the national defense agenda. Do you think we’re just going to let hordes of legally dead Latent people rot in prison? Or kill them? All of them?’
‘I . . .’ The room spun around him. Harlequin bit back on his tide and closed his eyes. ‘I . . . We don’t catch that many . . . It’s rare to come up Latent.’
Crucible touched his shoulder gently. ‘And we don’t . . . repurpose many. But sometimes, we do.’
‘Repurpose? Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘What would you prefer, Jan? That woman is mentally unhinged. She almost killed an entire housing project full of people. She forced you to risk your safety to bring her in. She’s here. She’s available. We haven’t even transferred her yet. Maybe this drug will help her.’
‘Maybe this drug will give her cancer, or brain damage, or bleeding ulcers.’
Crucible rolled his eyes. ‘So, it’s better for her to die by lethal injection. Or to rot away in the brig at Quantico on the taxpayers’ dime for the rest of her life.’
He sighed, leaned forward. ‘Look, Jan. All I’m saying is that we give her a chance to volunteer.’
‘You just said she was unhinged. How the hell can she volunteer?’
‘Anyone ever tell you that you think too much?’
‘I thought that’s why they commissioned me. Sound judgment.’
‘This isn’t sound judgment. It’s a failure to see the world as it is. There are policies that exist that guide those of us above your rank and level of experience. The circumstances demand that you be exposed to them now. Before you’re ready, apparently. Tough luck. The SOC makes those rules, and you carry them out, as you swore you would. Those rules say that Selfer belongs to us. They say that her fate is subject to commander’s discretion in extreme cases. This is a call I’m going to let Gatanas make. And I need to know you’re on board because I’m pretty damn sure what he’s going to say as soon as he sees this.
‘So, are we clear here?’ Crucible asked. The hand had come away from Harlequin’s shoulder, and his eyes were hard again. ‘You just gave me this big speech about the difference between us and Selfers, didn’t you? What was that difference?’
Harlequin met his eyes and swallowed. ‘Regs. We follow the rules.’
‘Well, now you know what the rules say, Mister Sheepdog. Fucking follow them.’
Chapter Eight
Parley
As children, we all struggle with an odd sense of nostalgia. We come to the edge of a lake, a copse in a larger wood. We feel . . . something. A sense of longing, a hint that there’s something deeper behind the beauty, a thing we touch only in dreams, in bedtime stories. I’ve heard Christians refer to this as the heart’s longing for a lost Garden of Eden. But now we know better. It is the current of the Source, moving through our plane, promising wonders just on the other side of the curtain, if only we can find a way to pull it aside.
– Margaret Torres
The Psychology of Magic
Swift leapt out the window.
He let himself fall for a moment before Binding his magic to the updrafts around him, the concentrated blast of air sending him bounding skyward, then dipping again, the bobbing flight of the swallow tattooed on his chest. He extended a hand, channeling a funnel of lightning above him, into the delta of winged-snake things. Their jeweled-looking feathers ignited, dart-shaped heads tossing. Their formation splintered apart, scattering them to plunge among the buildings.
Swift glanced over his shoulder. Betony stood at the window, hands braced on the pane. Her gray hair had come out of its jeweled clasp, tumbled across her shoulders. A non-Latent sympathizer, her apartment had been a haven to the shattered remnants of the Houston Street Gang since they’d first been splintered. Her endless wealth had fed them, bought clothing and medicine. He would not suffer harm to come to her. ‘Get inside and get down!’ he shouted, then dove. At least twenty of the flying serpents swarmed over the few blocks they’d managed to keep clear. He’d have to pursue them one by one.
Below him, what was left of the gang joined the fight. Guinevere had been a corporate mover before she’d come up Latent, easing into her early thirties in a bubble of soft wealth. Magic had made her a woman already one step ahead of him. She raced out of the building foyer, kicking off her
fancy shoes, the skirt of her business suit riding up her thighs. He felt her tide coalesce, the moisture in the air below him crystallizing. A handful of the things suddenly dropped like stones, their bodies frozen solid.
‘I’ve got it!’ she shouted up to him. ‘Help Flicker!’
The Pyromancer stood on the top of the Terramantic wall they’d raised, spanning Hubert Street. Swift had first met him in a Manhattan subway tunnel when the Houston Street Gang had taken him in.
Little Bear was one of the gang’s better Terramancers, so enamored of Big Bear that he took the diminutive of his name. Big Bear’s death had devastated him, but it hadn’t weakened his magic. He’d stretched the surface of the rock and asphalt wall into spikes at first, but had re-formed it glass smooth after the first wave of goblins used them to climb up.
Flicker’s bald head shone with sweat, eyes closed, teeth gritted in concentration. The street before him smoked, burning in patches, dotted with the smoldering remains of the weird, talking-horse things that had made up the vanguard of this latest wave. Spur, the former NBA basketball player turned Selfer, hovered beside him, his magic Binding somewhere above them. As Swift watched, a gale howled across the building top, ripping the wooden water tower from its moorings, sending it bouncing down to shatter in an explosion of splinters. Swift, Spur, and Flicker cried out and ducked as the spray of shrapnel barely cleared their heads. When Swift opened his eyes, the street was clear, the burned patches smoking, corpses swirling, and the ash turning to slurry in the sudden flood.
