Clean: A Mindspace Investigations Novel

by Alex Hughes

But Dane could. He’d modeled the shape of my mind, modeled it well enough to echo with Tech. He’d designed a machine to mimic my mind in reverse. Like those headphones you wore to hear nothing, the machine echoed the shape of my mind, and the waves canceled one another out. When I turned it on, I stopped existing in Mindspace, and Mindspace stopped existing for me.

  But even Dane wasn’t perfect. There was a flaw. The mind was fluid and the Tech was not; if you thought hard enough, differently enough, if you moved far enough away, it would stop working. Your brain waves and the machine’s waves would start to clash painfully. Then you turned the Tech off, or you’d end up with rips in your mind. Short-term exposure, you could heal in a week or so—the physical brain slowly overwriting the mind until you were back to normal. Long-term exposure, on the other hand—well, you’d be lucky to be a vegetable. Your physical brain left empty without software to run it.

  It was a crazy, bitter thing that I hadn’t thought outside the bubble tonight; it hadn’t torn my mind. Apparently panic and anger, bitter gall, and helplessness were normal for me. Normal, as depressing a thought as that was.

  I saw the breaking glass again, the drops of blue salvation running out, wasted. I saw Swartz turn the faucet handle….

  My mind grabbed for something, anything, to not think about it. And I got Swartz’s words: “I’m so disappointed.”

  I shied away from that too, and ended up with Dane’s face in my mind, a different kind of older pain. I missed him, still missed him. It wasn’t fair. Aneurysm was such a small word for something that destroyed everything. There wasn’t even any warning. I couldn’t even try to save him. He was dead by the time we got there.

  I thought, It’s his fault. His fault for dying. If he’d been there, maybe I wouldn’t have found the drug. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten hooked. Who knows, maybe Stewart wouldn’t have asked me in the first place. He’d been one of Dane’s friends, working in the same hush-hush experimental section. He would have kept his stupid drug research to himself. But Stewart was just the kind of bastard to have asked either way.

  He was researching drugs to improve telepathy, to bolster Ability long term. Satin had been one of the drugs he was testing; it had a strong effect in Mindspace, and it hadn’t been illegal then. Stewart had been looking for some volunteers to try it out. Two days after the funeral, three days after the aneurysm. I hadn’t been thinking straight.

  The first three doses weren’t my fault. They were Stewart’s, the Guild’s. Given to me, in the lab, like a rat. After that, well, after that there was plenty of fault to go around. Breaking into the lab to steal the drug was the least of what I was guilty of. When it all came out, in the end…Well, things fell apart, my bridges burned in slow motion, burned my old life, my good life, to pieces. Sitting in the ashes afterward just reminded me I’d set the match.

  I’d lit another match this time, and I could feel the bridges burning again. Swartz might never look at me the same again; the cops either. Cherabino might throw me out like garbage, especially after what I’d done before this. But as I sat in the ashes of the night, as I remembered other nights, as I missed Dane again with a pain that cut at my heart like a knife, my eyes watered. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

  I could feel the precog waking up, the crazy, stupid, unreliable precog. I could feel something coming, something bad. Something dangerous.

  And I had just done the one thing in the world that would keep anyone from believing me.

  CHAPTER 8

  Bellury showed up at the door the next morning. I glanced at Swartz—who was still glowering—and let him in. The older cop had a small leather case with him. We both knew why he was here.

  Bellury paused in the center of the living room, exchanged an inscrutable old-man look with Swartz.

  “Can at least I finish my cereal?” I asked them.

  Swartz nodded. I ate slowly.

  Finally I did it, peed in the cup when I was told. Bellury watched me do it, like I was a newbie all over again, like all the trust in the world had run out for me. I wasn’t stupid enough to protest, but the humiliation of it burned.

  I put the cap on the cup, set it in the clear baggie he held out for me, and zipped up.

  “Can I at least wash my hands in peace?”

  He nodded, tucked the baggie away in his case with a frown, and shut the door. I heard his footsteps as he walked away, across the apartment, and said good-bye to Swartz. The outside door creaked and slammed.

  Finally, I turned the water on.

  When I emerged, Swartz told me to get ready. “We have a park to clean,” he said.

  “Give me a minute,” I said.

  Most of the NA chapter showed up for the cleanup project. We picked up trash, cleared brush, trimmed bushes and branches; we even planted a few flowers that wouldn’t mind the heat. I bitched and sweated through two shirts, my muscles getting more and more sore while the back of my neck sunburned bad. It was miserable and hot and unhappy, but I went home with a small and angry sense of satisfaction.

  When Swartz signed us up for another Saturday next month, I complained louder than anybody—I hated the heat, we all did—but I didn’t take my name off the list.

  Swartz sat on my couch while I called the Guild on Sunday. More specifically, their external relations department. It had to be done, and the weekend was already a low point in my life. What was one more humiliation? It wasn’t like they were going to call Enforcement on me. Probably not, anyway.

  Swartz nodded encouragement, and I picked up the phone, dialing slowly. I watched him play solitaire as the phone rang.

  A young-sounding male voice picked up the call, and I relaxed one small degree. It was probably a student, judging from his general lack of confidence. Only six rounds of I-don’t-know and let-me-ask-my-supervisor-tomorrow before he’d write down what I wanted. After getting all of my old Guild information and current department contact—good for him—he repeated my request carefully and promised to send it on to the attaché.

  “When?” I asked.

  “When she gets in tomorrow,” the guy replied. “Um, Kara is usually in about eleven.”

  “Kara?” I repeated with a sinking feeling. The universe could not be so cruel as to make it be…

  “Yeah, Kara Chenoa. The attaché? That is who you wanted to meet with, right?”

  I dropped the phone to my chest. Swartz looked up, frowning, but I waved him back to what he was doing. I picked the phone back up, gritted my teeth, and dealt with it. “If she’s the attaché, that’s who I need to talk to.”

  “Do you have another number we can reach you at?” the guy asked.

  Lacking anything better, I gave him Cherabino’s work number. I probably couldn’t use Swartz’s for a police investigation.

  My head in my hands, I spent the next twenty minutes not explaining who Kara Chenoa was to Swartz. Who was Kara? Only the woman who’d betrayed me to the Guild. The woman I thought I’d marry.

  I wanted to throw up. But somewhere deep inside, I also relaxed a small, terrified degree. Kara might kill me herself, she might twist the knife on every bad thing I’d ever done, she might humiliate me in a hundred legitimate ways, but—but. She wouldn’t string me up for something I didn’t do. She wouldn’t call Enforcement. Kara had been fair to a fault, political as hell—but she would follow the rules if it killed her.

  I could work with her. It would be hell, but I could work with her.

  CHAPTER 9

  Monday morning, I got a cheese Danish and a cup of café-bought fancy coffee for Cherabino. It had taken a two-block hike in the early-morning heat to get it, but it was a peace offering. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. With my stomach in knots, I climbed the stairs to DeKalb County police headquarters with a deep sense of foreboding.

  I stared at the main common area, currently crawling with people shouting at the top of their lungs. Looked like a lot of teenagers, sullen and yelling teenagers, while their parents—I assumed
the older people were their parents—sobbed and screamed and threatened to hit the cops.

  A few fistfights were breaking out in Booking to the left, the secretaries had abandoned ship to the right, and the officer normally on Reception was escorting a very huffy teenage girl to the restroom.

  Great. Whatever was going on, I’d see it in the interview rooms soon, which meant a lot more work for me.

  I dodged chaos on my way to the elevators, making my way through desks and screaming suspects.

  I had screwed up my courage to apologize to Cherabino. I had a peace offering. I thought maybe, if I gritted my teeth, I might even manage to deal with Paulsen. I’d get through this. I had to.

  Upstairs, I found Cherabino hunched over her desk, the overhead light off, sunglasses on. I set the Danish and coffee down next to her. Some of the tension went out of me. She wasn’t mad; she probably couldn’t even start to be mad with a migraine. “Did you take your meds?” I asked, voice pitched quiet and low.

  Her shoulders were hunched in, almost collapsed, and she was leaning over the keyboard. In Mindspace, I could see the slow, inexorable pound of pain.

  She shifted her head slightly: a no. I sighed and fished out the bottle of pills from her second drawer. Handed them to her. Repressed a lecture. They didn’t do her any good if she wouldn’t take them, but she knew that.

  “You been to the doctor?”

  She forced down two of the horse pills, swallowing them with a face, then gulped the fancy coffee. “No,” she said, in that telling, raspy whisper. “Nothing they can do if I don’t want the surgery.”

  Obviously she didn’t.

  I knelt down by the side of the chair, close enough to feel the pounding pain, which suited my mood about now. I met her eyes. “About Friday—”

  “I’m sorry I hit you,” she said, reaching a hand out toward my still-tender jaw, pulling her hand back before she touched me. She looked away. “Just don’t go over my head again, okay?”

  “I won’t,” I said. I hoped it was true.

  “What are you doing? Three botched interviews in a day, and I had to be called down twice. It’s the effing start of the week!” Paulsen pushed her paperwork aside and got to her feet.

  I stood at attention—or the best approximation I could get without any formal training—in front of her desk, trying not to cause any more trouble than I already had. If the captain and Branen could fire me just because they felt like it, Lieutenant Paulsen was worse. She could make my life a living hell, and maybe today I would deserve it.

  “Got anything to say for yourself?” she asked. “Or are you standing there just to rearrange my neurons?”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” I said truthfully. She’d find out, somehow, and do…something very bad. I didn’t know what, which made it worse.

  “Good.” Her wrinkles deepened. “Now. What’s going on? You haven’t screwed up in months, and now three in a row? Is this about the phone call I got from Bellury this weekend? You’re lucky as hell your test came back clean.” She leaned on the edge of her desk, arms crossed in front of her. “We’ve been through this one too many times. I’ve got five cops a quarter in my office wanting me to get rid of you. Your rap sheet, your numbers—half the department’s convinced you’re playing us all. Taking secrets back to the Guild.” She paused, as if waiting for me to respond. “You can’t afford another screwup, not like the last time.”

  I thought about several possible answers, and settled for polite. “No, ma’am.”

  “I can’t afford another screwup like that one. The perp lost the lawsuit by a hair. Five million dollars—that’s enough money to shut all of us down. We can’t do that again. Not ever, understand? You’re making me nervous, and I’m not happy when I’m nervous.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She sighed. “Do you know why I’ve kept you on?”

  “Not really.”

  “That confession rate of yours is twice my next-best interrogator. Branen says you’ve upped Cherabino’s close rate another fifty percent. We like results. Those kinds of results, they’re good for the budget. But they’ve got to keep going, not like this morning. Not like before. Your results stop now, I’m not sure I can protect you. You understand me? No more leash, no more tolerance.”

  I swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She studied me. I tried to stand motionless, but I don’t think I succeeded. Finally she said, “It’s not just about you. You screw up an interview, you screw up an investigation. Sometimes it can’t be fixed—sometimes the hard cases don’t talk at all. It’s not about you. It’s about the investigation. You need a break, you take a break. You get your head in the game.”

  I nodded.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t let me catch you abusing the system. And I’ve arranged for weekly drug tests until I say different. Am I clear?”

  In that moment, her mind was wide open. I couldn’t help reading the truth of her words, and a distrust that burned me, that echoed my own. “Understood,” I said. “No more screwups. I’m supposed to talk to you the next time something’s up.”

  She blinked. Guess she hadn’t said the last out loud. But she continued, “That’s right. And the interviews?”

  “Take time if I need it. Get my head in the game.” I was angry now, but I wasn’t going to show it, not here.

  “I’d rather a delay than a screwup. We only get one shot at these guys, and you’re on the hard cases.”

  “Understood.”

  We faced each other for a long moment.

  “You can go now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I turned around and left, grateful to go. The distrust burned like acid, and the weekly tests were just one more indignity on top of the pile. But I’d done it before. I was not happy, but it could have been so much worse. I’d expected so much worse.

  I had just about reached the door when she spoke again.

  “Wait,” she said.

  I turned.

  “Make sure you show up early for the case briefing this afternoon.”

  “What case briefing?” I asked.

  “Cherabino’s having her team go over the multiples case. Wants you there. Don’t embarrass me by being late.”

  I turned to go—but she stopped me again.

  “Also.” She reached behind her for a plastacard, which she handed to me. “I had Bob run a data search on the Guild in the public records. Any reference to any member with a high rating in either of the two fields you were talking about. See what you can do to narrow it down to the ones with the right skill level, will you? It would be a miracle if something pops, but we’re looking for the miracles.”

  I agreed and took the card.

  “Get me something I can use. Now, get out of here.”

  I got.

  CHAPTER 10

  The meeting was held in the smaller of the two conference rooms—they called it Holmes, as in Sherlock. With four plain walls, a large bleached-wood table, and old wheeled chairs, the only real color in the place was the name. I was furious, disappointed, the scent of my own failure far too strong. But I had also had a long walk across hostile cubicles—I would keep it together if it killed me.

  Finally I reached the conference room. In the back, behind the huge table, one of the junior cops was setting up two rolling bulletin boards. A mountain of papers and a box of pushpins were sitting next to him on the table, ready for him to start affixing clues. He started with a map with seven red X’s on it, what looked like the East Atlanta area.

  Cherabino came in, her migraine easing but still there. She gave me a funny look, and I read fresh distrust and frustration. “You’re early.”

  Great, now she knew about my slip and wasn’t happy. I held my ground. “You asked me to come.”

  “Yeah.” She took a breath. “Find something useful to do.”

  Branen arrived at the conference room door with a handheld notebook and a cup of coffee. After Cherabino shot him a look, he explained, “I’m just sitting in. Af
ter the papers this weekend, I think it’s clear I’ll be answering questions from the media.” He was also thinking, if Piccanonni showed up, he wanted to be here to run interference. Whoever Piccanonni was.

  Cherabino swallowed a protest and gestured for him to take a seat where he could see the board. Impatient, she gestured at me to help the junior cop.

  I sighed. The junior cop gave me a stack of pages and pushpins, shooing me over to the board on the left, and I started pinning. We’d just have to put everything back in the murder book later, but maybe they thought it would spark new ideas. I’d do far stupider things to earn my way back to Cherabino’s good side.

  Picture after picture went up on the board, sad morgue pictures of seven dead faces. One was an old woman who’d owned the scarf in Cherabino’s office, her face discolored with a massive bruise. The rest were younger; the teenagers, their faces stuck in sullen despair, broke my heart. They should be irritating their caregivers and getting into trouble, not laid out like carrion on a metal table.

  Someone Guild had done this, had taken the information that should have been a sacred trust, and turned it on these people. Had broken them beyond repair, beyond even the hope of repair. The thought made me disgusted all over again. Anyone powerful enough to manage this should have been caught long ago by his handlers, by the Guild, and tried and executed. Murder was a big deal, but the Guild wasn’t doing anything. So now the cops had to handle it.

  I pinned up footprint pictures and sketches of other physical evidence, and another few people arrived at the conference room. One was a blond woman whose thoughts were curiously ordered, laid out in rows with tags like a dictionary. The other two visitors were a cop and a female tech, respectively. I had no idea what the blond woman was, but when I turned around, I noticed her sitting very straight in her chair, almost too straight, like she wasn’t comfortable here.

  None of the crowd introduced themselves, as if everyone knew everyone else—except perhaps for the blond woman. Either way, I was the one loser left out of the equation. I stayed very quiet, determined to work, to fit in. I did find a seat, though, at the end near the techs.