Vacant

by Alex Hughes

  Fifteen minutes later we were up on the fifth floor, ancient carpeted gray hallway lined with benches and the occasional solid door, signs everywhere. More people sat in the benches, and a sign said CHILD SUPPORT HEARINGS THIS WAY. The buzz of all the upset minds was intense.

  I was a terrible Minder, maybe, but the kid was in legitimate danger and I had to step up.

  Finally we were led through a secure area, a quieter hallway that smelled different, passing through another door into a small room—a judge’s chambers, according to the door. Judge Marissa Parson. She wasn’t there.

  CHAPTER 11

  There was a surprisingly large amount of waiting involved in bodyguarding. Well, more than I was expecting, or was used to; Cherabino was an impatient cop, and she’d long since figured out a way to bribe others into doing the real time-consuming work while she powered on to the next thing. It meant working with her gave you whiplash sometimes, and you drowned in the paperwork she handed you, but you didn’t often get bored.

  We’d settled in, me on a chair, Tommy on the floor almost rebelliously, though I didn’t tell him he couldn’t. He was making complicated paper boats, cutting file folders into pieces and folding them into shapes he then assembled with tape into boats. Since the file folders appeared to be empty, I didn’t protest.

  I sat in an overstuffed armchair to the right of the room and Tommy, under a reading lamp next to a big bookshelf. I was monitoring the surroundings in Mindspace, sure, but in this part of the courthouse the minds might as well be on a loop. They did the same things, thought variants of the same things, over and over.

  I was thinking about Cherabino a lot lately. Not only because of this trial—though it killed me not to be there and I was desperate to know what was going on—but because I missed her. I missed her as a person. And now, when I was worried about nearly everything, I missed her competence, her experience. There was very little in the world she hadn’t seen at least once, or could find someone who had on two minutes’ notice.

  I picked up the phone on the large desk and dialed Cherabino’s office number from memory. It rang three times.

  “Hello?” Michael’s voice picked up.

  “It’s me,” I said, glancing at Tommy still on the floor. “Is Cherabino around?”

  The tone of his voice changed to something more careful. “No. She’s at the hearing right now and will be for a few hours. Something I can do for you?”

  I considered hanging up but decided we really did need more information. And Tommy still seemed happy with his homework. “I’m in Savannah, and the case we’re dealing with . . . um, it’s been linked to Sibley, the killer for hire Cherabino’s been tracking for a while. I was hoping to get a copy of her files on him overnighted down here.” Maybe seeing his information in black-and-white would help me sort out what was real and what I was imagining.

  A long pause, which wasn’t characteristic of Michael. “I’m not technically supposed to be sharing information with you at this time. Since you’re working for an outside agency.”

  I made a frustrated sound. “Ask Branen. He approved it, and as near as I can tell he’s a fan of interagency cooperation to start with. The FBI will spring for the cost of the shipping.” At least, I hoped they would.

  “Adam?”

  “Yes.”

  A pause. “Strictly between you and me, she’s not doing well. If you can come up here today, I’d recommend it.”

  My stomach sank, and my guilt returned tenfold. “What’s going on?”

  “They’ve got another two days of hearings, but it’s bad. I’ve never seen the powers that be mobilize like this, not this quickly. The union reps are protesting, and they just sent in Chou and his team. It’s turning into a witch-hunt.”

  One of the foremost lawyers that worked with the department, Chou was good but he was expensive. For the union to hire him, it felt that Cherabino’s hearing was crossing some essential line on principle. Considering what Branen had said, that wasn’t out of line, and in fact it was probably a good thing. But I wasn’t there.

  “That’s . . . that’s rough,” I said. My stomach sank. “I can’t leave,” I said. “I want to be there, but I can’t leave. There’s a ten-year-old whose safety depends on me being here.” I couldn’t even imagine what would happen to Tommy if I left. “I can’t leave him.”

  Tommy looked up at me then, and frowned. He didn’t like being talked about like he was helpless.

  “You do what you have to do,” Michael said, but in the tone of voice of someone who thought I was in the wrong.

  I took a breath. Speaking of Sibley . . . “Did Cherabino have you look up the jail records for Sibley? She said she would.”

  “Yes. Give me a second.” There was a long pause while I listened to the sound of papers rustling. “Okay. I talked to the warden this morning. He was released on a special order sometime early in the week. Cherabino has a flag on his case, so we’re entitled to notifications. I’m not sure why they didn’t go through in this case.”

  “What in hell is a special order? Do you have any idea where he went? Damn it, you put people in jail, you expect them to stay there.”

  “Hold on, I had nothing to do with this. There’s no need to yell. And I don’t know who ordered it. The records are sealed . . . or at least not easily shared. It’s not any of the people that Cherabino suspects of being on Fiske’s payroll, but the DA’s office has been looking for that kind of evidence for a year now. No luck.”

  “What’s a special order?” I asked. I felt like beating my head against the wall.

  “It’s a rule from post–Tech Wars. Nobody uses it anymore, and they hardly used it then. If somebody with enough power wants somebody out for a time period, they can order it. They’re supposed to go back to jail when they’re done with whatever the special mission is. It’s like a governor’s pardon, only temporary. This one’s for six weeks.”

  Strange. I’d never heard of the rule, but then again a Guild education didn’t emphasize normal laws and I’d had to pick up police rules as I went. “You don’t know who gave the order?”

  “No. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. It’s been redacted, and the warden didn’t approve it personally. It’s the strangest damn thing. I’ll see if I can’t figure out more for you, but it looks like a dead end. I’ll turn it over to the Fiske task force. Maybe they can prove the connection.”

  I took a breath. “If he’s pulling strings on that level, the task force has bigger problems.”

  “Yeah. He destroyed the last case they built against him. If this is him, I’d say he’s moving on some kind of plan he needs Sibley for. Maybe the task force can piece it together.”

  A plan with Sibley lined up with my vision perfectly. “Thanks,” I said in a bitter tone. I didn’t think that the task force would be able to do anything, not fast enough.

  “Thank you for bringing it up. The department spent a hell of a lot of money and effort getting this guy behind bars, and we put a flag on his record. We should have been informed when this happened. The captain isn’t happy. I’ll . . . I’ll see what I can do about sharing the rest of the information. I don’t think anyone’s going to have a problem with it, especially if you guys are suspecting him in a case down there.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  There was another long pause.

  Finally I said, “Tell her she can reach me after seven at this number.” I gave him the judge’s house number, ignoring all protocol. If Cherabino needed me, I’d do whatever it took. I would. Even if it was too little, too late.

  Tommy’s safety was worth it. It had to be.

  “I’ll tell her,” Michael said.

  “Thanks.” I waited, realized there was nothing more to say, and hung up.

  * * *

  After an hour, I was literally hurting for a cig
arette, so I pulled Loyola into the room with Tommy and went outside to smoke near the side door of the courthouse. I saw the guard again, and he harassed me for ID again. Neither one of us felt entirely happy with the results of that one, but I made it out the building and moved to the corner of the building to smoke where I wouldn’t get in anyone else’s way and was still—barely—close enough to Tommy.

  That connection was tight, though, stretched like a tense rubber band in the back of my head. I poked at it as I smoked. The information on this from the book I’d read was sparse, and that was ten years ago. I didn’t have a lot of details on this kind of connection. The human mind—especially the pubescent and prepubescent human mind—was inherently unpredictable. Probably there was something in Guild records with a full write-up, but that did me no good right now, and right now was critical.

  I worried about it as I smoked and watched the cars go by in front of the courthouse, people walking up the front steps, people being belched out of the front door in large groups. The minds were a cacophony of sound outside, so I shielded up to my gills. I told myself I needed a break, and the truth was that I wouldn’t do Tommy much good from out here anyway.

  I was almost done with a too-fast cigarette when I saw him. My heart nearly stopped.

  Sibley was standing across the street, next to a tall kiosk full of soy-print newspapers and degradable magazines, paying the teenager in charge of the kiosk in cash. Pale and bald, average height with a muscular frame, he was dressed to blend into the crowd, a quiet suit that would have fit in anywhere in the world, but with shoes meant to run in. I knew that face despite the sunglasses. I’d know it anywhere.

  A car passed along the street between us and I took a step forward, then another. When the street cleared, Sibley was looking up—and directly at me.

  He smiled and gave me a two-fingered lazy man’s salute, fingers to forehead, and another car passed between us.

  I trotted toward him, still unable to believe what I was seeing—and then the connection with Tommy choked me like an invisible collar, tight. I could keep going, maybe. I could push through and break that connection—but I had no way of knowing what it would do to me, or to Tommy. And my priority had to be Tommy.

  His hands were empty, and I didn’t see either the device or the gun or any other suspicious lumps on his person. But there was no way to be sure this far away. No way to be sure.

  Sibley took his paper and walked away. I hesitated. But then I turned back, hustling toward the security guard to put him on alert. Then to Jarrod, to stir up whatever security we could.

  I tried to connect to Jarrod via Mindspace as I walked, but he didn’t hear me. Deaf as a doorpost, I guessed. I let Mendez know, though, and moved as quickly as I could.

  This was getting all too real.

  * * *

  Jarrod agreed with my assessment, and I left him scrambling half the city and three departments. It was my job to find Tommy and stay with him. It should have been my job in the first place, Jarrod had said.

  I passed Pappadakis’s lawyer in the hallway outside the courtroom, who apparently had stepped out of his client’s trial to take a phone call in the otherwise empty hallway. He stopped talking when I got within sight distance, and put his hand over the phone. “Do you mind?” he said, and glared at me.

  I frowned, wondering if this was Sibley he was talking to, but it felt like paranoia. When I tried to read him, all I got was a sense of fuzzy wariness. He and I had poor valence; our minds meshed badly, so that while another telepath might be able to read him perfectly well, I could not.

  But I didn’t have the time to stand here and drag it out of him. My senses were already back in Minding mode, tracking every mind in the vicinity. Hopefully it would be enough.

  I hustled back to the judge’s chambers, worried.

  At a time like this, I wished I had a physical weapon of some kind—a knife perhaps, or a Taser, or even pepper spray in a pinch. The cops would make fun of me to no end if I got caught with pepper spray—or even a Taser, to be honest—but if it gave me a chance to walk away or to overcome an attacker with my telepathy, I’d take the ribbing. I didn’t normally carry a weapon; my mind was a weapon all on its own. But it had already proven useless against Sibley, and like I’d said, he’d almost killed me. And maybe he was there, and was a threat. Maybe.

  Needless to say, I was jumpy when I closed the door behind me.

  Tommy was on his feet already, Loyola with gun ready.

  “You might knock,” Loyola said, lowering the gun. His heart was beating too fast, the decision not to shoot too fresh.

  “Next time I will,” I promised.

  “What’s wrong?” Tommy said. I could feel his panic, his reaction to my own worry.

  Crap. Now I was scaring the kid. I pulled on years of intensive training, and forced calm. Deep breath in, deep breath out, calm down the limbic system. “I saw a threat outside, but I reported it and we’re fine,” I said, and then forced myself to believe it. “If anything, it’s good news. You can’t shut down a threat you didn’t see.”

  Loyola met my eyes, question in his body language.

  No, not good news at all, I told him mind-to-mind. I’d appreciate you sticking around.

  He nodded significantly.

  “You’re lying to me,” Tommy said, sounding hurt.

  Crap, again. I stood closer to him. “I’m not lying to you. I just don’t want you to worry more than you have to. We’ve seen the problem. We’re dealing with it. Right here is probably one of the safer places in the world right now—local police are on their way on top of the usual security system, and the bailiffs are all armed as a matter of course.” I said this firmly, making myself believe it. Sibley had rattled me, though. Sibley had rattled me a lot, and my heart was still beating all too fast.

  “You saw the bad man, didn’t you?” he said. “The one from the vision.”

  Great. Teach me not to think too loudly around Tommy. I took a breath and responded, “I told you I’d stick around and keep you safe. I intend to keep that promise.”

  There was a silence as I looked at Tommy and Tommy looked at me.

  “Don’t die, okay?” he asked in a small voice.

  Loyola put a hand on Tommy’s shoulder then. “No one’s dying today. Now, don’t you have more math homework to do? Nothing calms me down when I’m tense like math homework.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Math stresses me out.”

  “I’ll help you with the homework,” Loyola said. “No sense in letting the teep do it.”

  “Telepathic expert,” I corrected.

  “Teep,” he said.

  Tommy looked back and forth between us, but his panic had faded.

  “Fine, teep,” I said, just to keep that panic out of his eyes.

  But my own heart beat too fast, and I jumped at every change in air pressure, waiting for the threat to hit.

  * * *

  Tommy sprawled out on the floor, pencil in hand while he did his homework against the floor. Math, judging from the rows of numbers and letters. He had a set of headphones on, listening to the radio; pricey things, those, to be so small and yet properly analog and therefore not Tech-law-restricted. His head bopped in time with a beat I couldn’t hear as his pencil slowly leaked numbers and formulas onto the page. Algebra, of course; I had no idea whether that was advanced or behind in the normal world for his age. It didn’t really matter, I guessed. I had no similar work, and I was still strung tighter than an overtuned guitar.

  Loyola was on a chair not far from him, checking a previous page of work for progress. I noticed his gun was out, set on a low table within easy arm’s reach with the gun pointed toward the door. His body language was relaxed, but it was a sham; he was seated forward, at the edge of the chair. For all of his slumping, he could be up and moving within a few seconds. I was about the same in M
indspace.

  I sat back in the armchair, trying to read an FBI procedures manual and not having a lot of luck. I’d need the information eventually, but right now it was too dry. Every time someone walked past in the hall outside I’d look up. But I couldn’t just worry either; I didn’t want Tommy getting any more scared than necessary, and considering our strange connection, that meant I needed to be legitimately calm, not just acting like it. I had to.

  I looked up. Someone was walking down the hallway in our direction again. This time they had a sense of specific purpose, if I could trust my senses. I didn’t recognize the mind from earlier in the day. It wasn’t Sibley, I didn’t think, but at this point that didn’t mean anything to me.

  “Heads up,” I said.

  Loyola was on his feet, gun ready, and I was moving toward Tommy, my own attention on the door as the mind got closer and closer.

  Tommy got to his feet and said, “That’s Dad again,” with the kind of dismissive attitude only a kid could really pull off. “Don’t shoot him.”

  I reluctantly let go of the defense I’d been building for us both and pulled more of my attention into the real world.

  Tommy opened the door, and we saw the bruised face and classic pre–Tech Wars haircut of Quentin Parrish, who had his hands in the air and his mind pulled into as small a profile as he could make it. He had a hat in hand.

  Loyola lowered the gun, slowly, but did not put it up.

  “Apologies for startling you, gentlemen,” Quentin said. Then when he saw the words had registered, he smiled the large smile of a man who was used to charming his way into anything he wanted. “Not that I don’t appreciate you watching my son with that kind of hair trigger, but what do you say I lower my hands, you lower your gun and mind, and we have a nice conversation, huh?”

  “Fine.” I took a deep breath, intentionally trying to lower my adrenaline level and heart rate, and eased away from Tommy in Mindspace.