Vacant

by Alex Hughes

  She sighed. “You know I can’t comment on that.”

  It bothered the crap out of me. Whatever was going on could not bode well for the normals, or probably for me. The Guild amassing cash reserves—on top of all the other Guild First crap—wasn’t good for anyone. But I had a hell of a lot on my plate already without adding that to the mix.

  “Was there anything else, Adam?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I was calling out of the goodness of my heart to let you know about a potential problem the Guild should be dealing with.”

  “What’s going on?”

  I looked around the darkened house. No one was here immediately to overhear, and I was pretty sure they weren’t recording outgoing conversations, not with the conversation we’d had the other day, and not with the judge so resentful of their presence anyway. But still . . . “I’m not on a secure line.”

  “Okay . . .” She trailed off. “You asking me to Jump somewhere?” She sounded tired. Teleportation across distance took up a lot of energy, and she hadn’t been a courier in years, I knew. Plus, it was late.

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “You remember when we were talking about boxes back in August?” That was the code we’d used to talk about some Guild technology that was missing from their storage, technology too illegal and politically dangerous to be discussed directly. Sibley’s device was a different technology from a different batch, but I was hoping she would understand the code anyway.

  A pause while she thought about it. “The boxes that were missing from the vault?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “And then there was the very tiny box that you showed me in that holding cell, with Stone there, remember?”

  “Um, the one that they made after telling me they wouldn’t? The one the family got very upset over?”

  “Upset” was an understatement; there had nearly been a Guild war over the device she’d shown me then, that device and the lack of communication on the highest levels of the Guild Council. Not that I rated Council access now.

  “That’s the one,” I said. “I think I told you about a similar box that Sibley had?”

  “Who’s Sibley?” she asked.

  “Remember when I almost got strangled to death?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, he works for Fiske, who I know you know about. The box . . . well, it’s one of those trick puzzle boxes. You press a button and it . . . well, it ‘marnififes.’”

  She paused. “As in . . . ?”

  “Yes.” Marnifife wasn’t an actual word; it was the verb form of a guy’s name, Marny Fife, who at the beginning of the Guild was famous for influencing other people’s thoughts and behaviors with coercive thought waves. It was against everything the Cooperist ethical system believed in, but it was still taught to schoolchildren as an example of what not to do. It was cheating, and coercive, and did not treat other minds with the respect due them as human beings. But it was effective, at least when Marny Fife did it. Kara and I and our school friends had used the term for anyone outside the ethical lines, but it still had enough of its old meaning, hopefully for her to understand.

  “The box itself marnififes? And the people around it . . . ?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, exactly.”

  “Oh.” The word dropped like a bomb. She understood.

  “I need you to look up the plans for the one you have in custody and get me the combination that will keep it from working,” I said. “I’m not against a physical intervention to break the thing, but I really need a counter to it, or something to gum up the works. I’m in a situation . . . I can’t be marnififed,” I said awkwardly. “I swear I won’t share the information any further, but you guys can’t afford to have these things on the loose any more than I can.”

  “Enforcement will want to get involved.”

  “We’re in the middle of a high-profile case all over the media,” I said. “In my opinion, sending a bunch of goons in Guild uniforms will cause more harm than good.”

  “You could be right. But here’s the thing. If I send you a counter, certain parties here won’t be happy. It makes the box in question useless. And you know I can’t stall on this kind of information forever. It will come out, and I will have to answer to my superiors.”

  “I won’t spread the information. You know me well enough to know that. And honestly, Kara, you’ve never liked this tactic anyway. It’s not Cooperist. It’s not Cooperist at all, and considering who has their hands on it right now, the Guild would be better off lopping off the head of this thing completely.”

  “Are you suggesting we take steps against normal criminals?” she said in a very flat tone.

  “No, I’m suggesting nothing of the kind. That would be a Koshna violation,” I said. It would violate the treaty that gave the Guild the right to rule itself, and considering the level of fear in the normals against the Guild right now, it might erupt into war. I’d been against this level of mind-technology ever since I found out about it; it violated the letter and the spirit of that treaty. But exposing the Guild wouldn’t get me anywhere either, and I had the feeling if the Guild showed up in force I’d lose the FBI job, which I needed.

  I sighed. “Hold off on the force, okay? I’m trying to play this as well as I can. I’m giving you the information and my best impression on how to resolve this to both our best interests. I will likely come face-to-face with this on my own; best-case scenario is that I take care of it quietly and either destroy the thing or return it to you. But you have to give me the ability to do that. I promise I will coordinate with you when this all is over with my best information about where to find it if it gets away.”

  She clicked her teeth again and made a little frustrated sound. “You keep putting me in impossible situations.”

  “Considering the recent adventures at the Guild, I really wouldn’t complain,” I said. Her request had put me in a series of ever-escalating situations that had nearly cost me my Ability and my life. It was over now, but I wasn’t exactly happy over the cost. “Whether you acknowledge a debt or not, I did you a favor, a big favor that nearly cost me everything. I’d suggest you find a way to help me now.”

  I felt bad as soon as the words were out of my mouth. I didn’t want to be that guy, the guy who played hardball to get anything done. I didn’t want to be my father, who didn’t care who he had to hurt as long as he won his court case and his client succeeded. I didn’t want to be that guy. But apparently right now I had to be.

  Kara didn’t seem to respond as well to niceness, not now, not when her agenda for the Guild and all its complicated layers won out over me and my favors every time.

  She was silent.

  “I’m not asking this time,” I said. “I’m telling you, get me the counter to this thing. It does neither one of us any good if it takes me out and the case goes bad in public. Worse if some idiot figures out why. That benefits the Guild not at all.”

  After a moment, she said, “I don’t like it when you’re like this.”

  It hurt me, but I said nothing. It would maybe save my life, and Tommy’s life, to get this thing. So her hurt feelings didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, in that grand scheme.

  She sighed. “I’ll call you back tomorrow with a counter. Give me a number.”

  I did, and hung up, feeling guilty. But I’d gotten what I’d picked up the phone to get.

  * * *

  I found Tommy in his room. Guilt still hung around me like atomized cologne, and probably would for a week yet, but I’d do what I had to do to keep that vision from happening. To keep my promises. Starting with this one.

  Not to mention, forward motion felt good.

  “You wanted me to teach you stuff,” I said. About telepathy, I added.

  “Yeah,” Tommy said. His voice was disengaged, but he was interested. He’d sat up and was paying a lot more attention.


  I’d watched him in action, and he didn’t seem to have any gift other than the common send-receive of telepathy. He hadn’t been able to light a fire, teleport, lift things with his mind, or any of the other less common Abilities, not that I could see. And there was no way to test for precognition; it was something that developed in your teens, that woke you up in the middle of the night shivering in terror, or it wasn’t. The brain had had thousands of years to develop a warning sense of danger, and some minds took that to the extreme.

  So Tommy was a regular, plain, unleavened telepath. But from everything I could sense, he’d be a strong one—and strength made up for a lot of limitations, if you trained it right. And for whatever reason, his brain was still settling, still working itself into consistent telepathy. Otherwise he’d have been recruited by the Guild already. I had no doubt that would happen soon, though, and the more I could give him in the meantime, the better. Not to mention the more we’d have to work with if something really did go horribly wrong.

  “You serious about the lesson?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said, but he wasn’t. He was tired, and distracted, and mad at me and everyone else a little. And I wasn’t exactly at my best either.

  “We’ll do it another time,” I said.

  “You promised tonight,” he said. He was slouched on a chair, and that wasn’t a terrible position. You wanted to be comfortable, more than anything. But he wasn’t taking it seriously right now, and sometimes posture led to a change in attitude. If we were going to do this, we would do it correctly.

  “Fine. Grab a pillow and come sit down on the floor with me,” I said, pulling a folded blanket to the floor. “You might try cross-legged. You want a straight back, though. That’s the important part.” I sat down, legs outstretched awkwardly in front of me. Cross-legged hurt my knees on a bad day, and I’d long since come to terms with that. I opened up my mind enough to let him read the information if he wanted to.

  “Now, let’s talk about what I do when I Mind,” I said. It was as good a place to start as any, and he’d had plenty of opportunity to watch the action so far. It would also ground me in this job and this reality strongly, which I needed right now. “I keep track of the minds and the emotions in the surroundings. My range is maybe half a mile in all directions, more if the emotions are strong. I’ve seen folks with larger ranges, and I’ve seen folks with shorter ones. It has to do with how sensitive your brain is to the fluctuations in Mindspace.”

  I shifted and straightened my back, and Tommy settled himself across from me. He was cross-legged, of course, no pain. Kids were like that.

  “What’s Mindspace?” he asked.

  “Mindspace is the space in which minds interact with the world, through a medium no one really understands.” Tommy made a face, not getting it, so I switched to “Imagine water, right? If you’re in the bathtub and you move your hand through the water, the water makes these waves that run into the side of the tub, right? You move your hand faster, the waves hit the tub harder. There’s more energy. Well, telepaths are like your hand—well, let’s say they’re goldfish in the water.”

  “Ew, goldfish?” Tommy made a face, picturing a bathtub full of him and goldfish equally.

  “Let’s say an aquarium full of goldfish and we’re standing outside,” I said.

  “Okay . . .” The word dragged out of him. I was starting to lose his attention. Crap, it had been a long time since I’d worked with the younger ones.

  “Okay,” I said. “Imagine you’re a goldfish, I’m a goldfish, your mom’s a goldfish, and Special Agent Jarrod is a goldfish.”

  “Why are we all goldfish?”

  “Because we’re swimming around and the water moves,” I said, holding back annoyance. “Like in the tub example. When you see in Mindspace, you feel the waters move and it tells you a lot about the mind whose emotions are moving things. When you’re a telepath, you make stronger waves. Usually you’re also more sensitive to the movements.”

  “I’m confused,” he said, frowning.

  I sighed. “Let me show you an example.”

  He looked at me. I looked at him.

  You going to let me show you? I asked quietly, mind-

  to-mind.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Remember the sliding door I showed you how to make earlier? You’ll need to push that aside for now.”

  “Oh. How do I do that?”

  “Just think about pushing it aside and letting me walk into your foyer for a moment. Don’t think too hard about it—it should happen on its own.”

  He frowned and did it.

  “Good. Very good.”

  “Now what?” he asked, the words echoing in the foyer of his mind.

  I knocked.

  He told me to come in, which I did.

  I stepped in and worked on increasing the detail of our shared house-picture. This wasn’t a bad image for him to start with, and while it had its limitations, it wouldn’t teach him too many bad habits. I solidified the walls, giving them texture and paint and wainscoting, adding pictures and a low table with flowers to the space. The entryway would be a dark wooden floor.

  Tommy insisted it should be carpet.

  Fine, carpet. I had him add some layers and texture to that, until it felt real. Until he could smell the space, which was always daytime, and be comfortable and happy here. And then I cheated.

  I formed a thought the size and shape of a marble, or at least it would look like that from the outside. I showed him the thought, a shining marble sphere of light.

  You ready? I asked.

  He settled in, bringing a picture of his own body into the space as a stand-in for his mental self. Good, very good. Having a strong sense of self was everything, and he was already ahead of the game.

  I dropped the shining marble, and it fell, slower than you’d expect from gravity, falling, falling until it hit the carpeted floor. It sank in, like a rock in a pond.

  The carpeted floor fell too, then rebounded like the surface of that pond. Ripples spread out through the floor, hitting our feet and shifting shape, hitting the walls and making the walls ripple too like the smoke in a mirage, like the world with waves.

  Cool, Tommy said. Cool! The projection he had of his body rippled and shimmered too, before disappearing. He was still here, just more diffuse. Do it again.

  Come on back, I said. Get yourself nice and present here, and go stand at the far side of the room.

  He struggled with that for a moment and then complied, an approximation of his body appearing again, until he walked over to the other side of the room. He was standing in front of the small table. The flowers, I noticed, had lost all their color, fading out once his and my attention had moved from them. I put some attention back and the petals sharpened, the color brightening. I re-added some detail to the shared world.

  Now this time I want you to focus on what you feel in the corner, at that particular point in the room. I held up a “hand” to forestall his objection. Yes, it’s all in your head here. But if you can stay really conscious of that one spot in particular, it will make it easier to understand what I’m talking about. You can do it. I have faith.

  I formed a thought again, this one a little bigger, a shining sphere with internal moving clouds. Tommy was ready in his corner.

  I dropped the marble, and it fell even slower, its mind-mass picking up momentum very slowly.

  It hit the carpet, a larger stone in a smaller pond, and the world rippled. Deep waves emanated from the meet point, along the carpet, at the table, through the walls. Tommy’s self rippled too, but he stayed present enough to feel the shape of the world moving through him.

  I gave him a minute to be excited and to think about what he’d felt; then I said:

  It’s different when you’re looking at the whole of the world. I’ll show you that in a m
inute. But we started here, where you can feel the energy moving, on purpose. Most everything in the world moves in waves—like that—and while your brain tends to read the waves like listening to sound—you aren’t always aware of the shapes of the information coming at you—it’s always there. This is how Mindspace and the world in your mind and other people’s minds really works. Knowing that can let you manipulate things to get some cool effects.

  The room around us was slowly diffusing, slipping away into more and more vague pictures. It would disappear in a minute; Tommy was focused on what he’d just experienced and I wasn’t spending a lot of energy to maintain the picture either. I kept just enough for the feeling of a three-dimensional room with carpet, and let the rest go.

  Can you surf the Mindspace thing?

  I laughed, startled. What an incredible image. Maybe, I said. My old mentor, Jamie, could move Mindspace in a virtual tsunami, could make the world crash in on you. Mindspace moved just that big, and if you could ride that energy somehow . . . Maybe one day you’ll figure out how, I said. Telepathy and all the rest are still young sciences. There’s still a lot of corners to explore and things to figure out from scratch.

  He thought about that, and the edges of the room moved away still farther, until we stood in a white box with diffuse light.

  Not everybody can see Mindspace for themselves, and it’s probably too early to know for sure whether you can or not, I said. We can try to build you up to that later. But for now, want to see what I see when I Mind?

  Sure!

  I let the projection go, and settled him in an observer position, strapping him in like the second seat on an impossibly big hang glider. I went slow, letting us transition out of his mind, out of him in control, and back to the wider world with me driving. Then, once he and I were both comfortable, I opened up my mental eyes and drifted down into Mindspace.