Jacob raised an eyebrow.
“Bunks,” I said innocently.
He let that one go with an eye-roll and approached the neat piles of clothing folded on the bottom bunk. “It gets even better: uniforms.”
From the psych ward to the police force, I’ve worn enough uniforms to know my current outfit wasn’t too bad. A navy T-shirt and hoodie, and lo and behold, sweatpants. All of them printed with the word INVESTIGATOR in clunky block letters, across the chest, the back, and down the right thigh. And to top off the look, cheap nylon jackets in blaze orange, with a flocked lining to keep out the worst of the cold. Normally, going around so ill-equipped would be courting pneumonia, but we’d been in the midst of a warm snap that would surely come back and bite us as a freak snowstorm come April.
Once our suits were hung up and our new getups were donned, we reconvened outside the cabin. Jacob and I were quite the pair in our orange jackets, blue sweats and black leather shoes. Bly looked the same, though without the structure of his suit, it was easier to imagine him like I’d known him years ago, a PsyCop schlubby with paunch, before the FPMP hid him in plain sight with an extreme haircut and the world’s most motivated workout regime.
It might be above freezing, but if we were going to stand around and complain, it would be better to do it indoors. We power-walked to the biggest shack—the Convergence Hall—to embark on our surprise weekend adventure. While I wasn’t exactly eager, I figured the sooner we got started, the sooner I could loaf around in my new sweatpants. In a bunk bed.
The folks from the FPMP weren’t the only ones converging in the Convergence Hall. A couple dozen unfortunates were wearing the same wardrobe we’d been assigned. They looked like law enforcement, square and young and fit, though the word INVESTIGATOR emblazoned on all those muscular chests and thighs had helped me form that opinion. Since I don’t suppose a bunch of random fitness buffs had any reason to be out in the middle of the woods learning interrogation, I was probably right. We took a seat, and the man who’d greeted us strode to the front of the room. “Nowadays,” he said, “surveillance equipment has been advancing by leaps and bounds. Cameras are small enough to tuck into a lapel pin. Listening devices will synch right to your cell phones ten yards away.”
And if you’re lucky enough to have the FPMP interested in your private matters, psychs can do all that and more.
“But even with all this new technology, an investigator’s biggest asset is still…his brain.”
Rustic beard guy launched into some convoluted explanation about how we’d divide our days: an hour of lecture followed by an hour of mock interviews. Our subjects would be the bored-looking twenty-somethings standing up against the wall. All of them were dressed identically, just like us, but they’d be a lot harder to spot outside. Their windbreakers were gray and their sweats were winter camo, emblazoned with the word WITNESS. Using whatever technique we’d just been lectured on, we’d question the kids in camo until they coughed up some kind of evidence.
When he held up the visual example of said evidence, the energy in the room shifted palpably. I’m no empath, but I know a bunch of hypercompetitive macho types when I see them. Heck, I live with one. The evidence—a diagram of a handgun, maybe a Browning .22—was the size of a playing card. And from baseball cards to Garbage Pail Kids to Pokemon, cards were something everyone in that room had been raised to covet and collect.
“These cards contain key pieces of evidence that can be assembled into various scenarios. Piece together your crime based on the evidence, write up your report….” Report writing. The part of law enforcement no one warns you about.
Anyway, digest the lectures, collect the right cards, jot down the right thing, blah blah blah, and maybe you’ll prove you have the biggest dick.
Beard guy dismissed the WITNESSES, and an academic type took the floor. He launched right into a spiel about building rapport. It held my attention for about two minutes, until he broke out the statistics. And then the sound of the baseboard radiators pinging hijacked my attention, and I became transfixed by the patterns in the old linoleum floor. The twelve-inch tiles had been printed with a design to make them look like smaller tiles, but they weren’t fooling anyone. Each tile was made up of sixteen printed squares. Three gray, eight white, five blue. And they might have formed a regular pattern, had they been installed all facing the same direction, or at least all rotated in a consistent way. But the installer had either gone according to a cunning scheme only he was privy to, or he’d been completely random. Over by the window, the gray squares were rotated toward each other so they looked like they were clumped together, whereas around our table, there was a wider gap between them. And over by the door, a string of five tiles all faced the same way, with the gray squares forming a repeated row in front of the threshold.
“…and by mirroring the tilt of the witnesses’ heads,” the speaker was saying, “the amount of useful information gained in the interview is increased by twelve to fourteen percent. Any questions?”
Yeah. How can you break down “usefulness” into a statistic? I wondered, but I didn’t ask. My curiosity was overruled by my desire to get on with whatever was in store for us next, get through the day, finish out the weekend and go back home. Besides, in my experience, questioning someone’s stats just results in a fresh barrage of terminology I don’t understand.
Beard guy reappeared and told us, “The twenty witnesses will be stationed throughout the facility. Question as many as you can. And when you’ve properly demonstrated the technique…” he held up a crime scene trading card. “You’ve got three hours. Time starts…now.”
Maybe I missed the part about which way I was supposed to tilt my head, but I could still glean something from the INVESTIGATORS’ body language. The kids who were eager to prove themselves were the first ones up and out the door. The seasoned pros knew that basic attendance would be enough to fulfill their departmental requirements. They lagged behind, chatting. And my team? Bly and Jacob both looked like they had something to prove. “If you take the north end of the camp,” Jacob told Bly, “I take the west and Vic grabs the area behind the cabins, we won’t be competing for the same witnesses at the same time.”
Bly considered the plan. “But what if witnesses are more concentrated in some areas? We should rotate our territories so we all have a fair chance at the same number of cards.”
“You guys do what you need to do,” I said. “I’m not gonna step on your toes. I can…observe.”
“But you won’t get any cards that way,” Jacob said.
“That’s a sacrifice I’m prepared to make.”
He looked at me as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what I was getting at—much like me and anyone who tries to impress me with a statistic—but after a moment’s consideration, he treated me to a shrewd smile. His nostrils gave that little flare they give when he’s intrigued by something, and his eyes sparkled. When we turned toward the door to go locate our witnesses, he bent his head to my ear and whispered, “Game on.”
He thought I was playing him to get ahead?
Seriously?
3
I tromped out into the woods with all the other INVESTIGATORS. Some of them had located witnesses and begun to question them. I poked around the buildings while I waited for one of those witnesses to free up. But the other law guys seemed just as eager to score some cards as Jacob and Bly, and they weren’t letting any of the WITNESSES get away, so eventually I picked out a random trail and wandered off.
Aside from the odd overgrown lot, there’s not much nature to explore where we live. And frankly, the thought of an idyllic campground out in the woods intrigued me. There hadn’t been the money to send any of us in foster care to something like this, actual cabins, where kids learned songs and made crafts and swapped completely made-up ghost stories. In fact, my main exposure to campgrounds was in the slasher horror movies I loved so much in high school. So seeing one up close and personal was, dare I say it…interesti
ng.
Trails were easy to follow in the packed snow, and my cop-soled shoes provided adequate traction. I looped around the office, meandered past a snow covered tennis court, and threaded my way through some trees on a path that led to a ramshackle amphitheater. The corner of one wooden bench had been cleared, and on that corner perched a girl in a gray windbreaker, smoking furtively. Her camo hoodie was pulled up snugly but the ends of her hair stuck out, blondish and damaged, like she’d dyed and permed it a couple years ago then realized keeping it up was more trouble than it was worth. Her cheeks were broken out, which was accentuated by her cold-red nose. She looked like she’d rather be anywhere but there.
I turned to leave her to her smoke when the snow squeaked and revealed my presence, and her head jerked up.
“Sorry,” I told her.
“We’re not supposed to smoke,” she said, without making any move to get rid of the incriminating cigarette. “But they’re making us work, like, four hours with no break. Four hours. I could probably report them for that.”
“I guess. If you could find anyone to listen.”
“It’s minimum wage, y’know? And no breaks?”
“Bosses will get as much out of you as they can.” I ambled over, cleared a spot halfway down the bench upwind of the smoke, and sat.
We both gazed off into the trees. I could see a few yards in before visibility ended at a stand of pines. I asked, “Where are we, anyway?”
“Don’t you know? Blankley. Population 1200.”
That meant nothing to me. I shrugged and asked, “What do you do when you’re not hiding from guys in windbreakers?”
“I work at the grocery store. Part-time. Took a semester off to save up some money and somehow never got back to my degree. We had some family stuff going on. My sister….”
A shockingly red cardinal dropped onto the top row of benches, hopped a few feet, gave off a sound like a miniature car alarm, then launched up into the treetops and out of sight. We watched it fly away. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I had a camaraderie with my new acquaintance, but it wasn’t too awkward. “I’m not exactly sure what this whole exercise is all about,” I admitted.
“Oh my God,” she said. I looked at her. She was sizing me up. “You’re doing it and I didn’t even realize.”
“Doing what?”
“That mirroring thing.”
Well, true, we were both sitting on a low bench with our elbows on our knees, canted forward with our hands dangling down between them…but there are only so many ways to sit on a snow-covered bench. “Not really.”
“Here.” She handed me a card with a picture of grass blades and the word scene printed on it. “You a cop?”
I almost admitted to it, but at the last moment, I realized I no longer carried that particular stigma. “Not anymore.”
“Oh. Well, you’re good. I thought we were just, y’know, talking.”
I’m pretty sure that’s what we’d been doing, but I accepted the card just the same.
Once she finished her cigarette, it was time to head back inside for yet another lecture. I found Jacob and Bly ensconced at the same table we’d occupied before. Territorial lines had been drawn, I suppose. It seemed like everyone had become accustomed to their “spot” and returned to wherever they’d randomly sat the first time around. The lecturer came back out, called up his PowerPoint, and proceeded to tell us all we needed to establish rapport. I was guessing they weren’t telling Bly anything he didn’t already know, only he did it by digging around in the heads of his witnesses. When I questioned anyone with him around, they couldn’t wait to tell us a story.
The lecturer clicked to a slide of a guy talking to a cop. They both looked pretty stilted to me. “Witnesses with greater rapport experience more accurate recall.”
I meant to listen to him, but I’ve always been averse to people telling me things that are basic common sense. I thought about the card in my pocket. Knowing Jacob, he’d amassed a good handful in the time it took me to score one. Bly, I wasn’t so sure of. How many cards had he racked up so far? Probably a dozen. Although…if he was on Neurozamine, maybe not.
While the lecturer went on about the importance of active listening, I pondered what Laura might have intended by sending us off into the woods with our talents on pause. For me, it was a matter of people versus ghosts. When I’m on Auracel, I needed to focus my investigation on living witnesses. The others? Jacob was no longer inscrutable to psychic suspects, and Bly couldn’t predispose people to trust him.
Sending us on this stupid excursion did make sense, like night-training at the shooting range. For them, anyway. Not for me, not really. Ghosts were anything but reliable, so I had plenty of practice talking to living witnesses.
Once the dull PowerPoint was done, we were served a simple catered meal of sandwich, chips, and cookie. Bly muttered, “Carb explosion,” and went to talk to the staff about hooking him up with some salads in the future. He even had to forego the cookie. Poor sap.
There was an optional “icebreaker” afterward, but it looked pretty lame, a bunch of twenty-something straight guys prancing around looking burly and macho, and a few women looking equally as macho.
After the first five minutes, I grabbed an extra soda with an eye to making my escape, when Beardy McBeard waylaid me just shy of the exit. So close. “Chicago crew—I’ve got special orders from your boss.” He gave me a pointed look that could only mean “pill.” He gestured to Jacob and Bly and said, “Let’s head to the office.”
He must not have been accustomed to pilling his trainees. Not only did he lack the tiny paper cups, but he didn’t have bottled water on hand, either. It took several minutes of fussing and futzing while he dug up some coffee mugs and tried to figure out who got which dose. We watched him impassively, each of us with our own brand of PsyCop patience, and when he finally got his act together, we swallowed our pills and waited blandly for our dismissal.
“First search starts at 0800 hours,” he informed us. “Stop here afterward for another dose.” And even I could hear the part he didn’t voice: I don’t know what this is all about, and I’m guessing I don’t want to, but it’s kind of titillating anyhow.
The camp was small and the cabins weren’t far from the office, but with the sun now set and a thick, oppressive damp settling in, I was eager to wrap up in a blanket and do my best to catch up on my sleep. A few Reds would have been the perfect chaser for my Auracel, but even if I had one in my hot little hands, I wouldn’t have taken it. The thought of some habit-demon pulling my strings sucked out all the enjoyment.
“Have any luck out there today?” Jacob asked casually.
“Hardly.” I plunked down into a plastic chair. “You?”
“I found five witnesses, stationed about twenty yards apart. Where were you looking, exactly?”
I made a vague gesture in the general direction.
“By the snowshoe trails? By the bonfire pit?”
“Out in the trees.” I sighed. “I don’t see the point, anyhow. Collecting cards is great, for a twelve-year-old. I just can’t get worked up over a nonexistent crime.”
“Look, new agency, new job—your performance matters. Even in a simulation.”
So this was how working with Jacob was going to be. His gung ho to my ho hum. He hunkered down in front of me, draped his forearms across my knees, and asked, “The tree line at the north end, or the one closer to the warming station?”
“Are you strategizing, or are you trying to poach my witness?”
He gave me a sharky grin and walked his fingers up my leg. I angled my hips, and he tugged my new sweatpants down around my knees. If the two of us both knew he was trying to manipulate me, did it still count as manipulation? I tried not to think too hard about it. It was a good thing, him finding his groove again at the FPMP, trusting Laura enough to take the pill and get with the program. Even since Laura took over, he hasn’t known where he fits in. And if Con Dreyfuss had made him uneasy, Laura had
him feeling downright leery.
Then again, the fact that he was trying to get a rise out of me didn’t really prove he was relaxed. We fucked loud and often under the FPMP surveillance. Hell, I think we made a special point of being raunchy to defy whatever random black-suited guy was listening in. I wouldn’t exactly call being monitored an aphrodisiac, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t heighten the senses.
Jacob teased his way up my inner thigh, trailing moisture with his tongue. His breath played over the finer hairs and sent courses of shivers through random branches of my nervous system. The tingles arced down my leg to my toes, then back up to my ballsack, which shifted in anticipation. He worked his way higher while my body vacillated between turned on and ticklish, and I clutched at the squeaky plastic chair arms to force myself to keep still and endure that initial ambivalent sensitivity.
“Stop teasing and suck me off,” I said, and he gave a huff of satisfaction against my balls that made every last one of my hairs stand on end and my dick fatten up in anticipation. Things were so much simpler for that dumb hunk of flesh between my legs. It didn’t care why Jacob’s hot, wet mouth was rooting around in its proximity, it just wanted to shoot its wad inside. And maybe, when it came right down to it, the rest of me didn’t much care either. Fake witnesses and zero crime. Nothing to get worked up about. Nothing but…. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah…do it.”
I threaded my fingers through what I could of his short hair, and reveled in the feel of his jaw working as he took me deep—so deep, so good. Sucking hard. So good. Yes. The peak was coming fast, and he knew it. Not with his talent, but with his standard five senses. He knew me inside and out, the way I shifted or went still…the way I breathed, or stopped breathing, eager for that final nudge to send me spiraling into that velvety black pit of satisfaction where everything melts away but the sweet relief.
My back arched and I hovered for just a single, shining moment, unburdened, and then I came. I emptied myself into him, all my ambivalence, all my vulnerability. Maybe I would never trust anybody one hundred percent, but I knew how far the borders of my trust with Jacob spread. And that perimeter was so vast I might never find all the edges.
PsyCop Briefs: Volume 1 Page 18