“Dr. Addams,” Governor Goodall said, “I don’t know what that was about, but I hope you didn’t - didn’t do what I think you did, because it’s against protocol. You’ll have a reprimand in your permanent file if you -”
“Stuff it,” she said.
“What? What did you say to me?”
“I said stuff it,” she repeated, and decided she would say no more.
She sat and listened to the scraping of chairs and movement of feet which indicated everyone was leaving. She continued to sit until she felt a presence at her back.
“Leave me the hell alone,” she suggested.
“Look,” Paul Dinardo said, “if I could do anything, I would.”
She opened her eyes and twisted around to face him.
“How about suicide? That might at least cheer me up.”
He grimaced at her, pointed a finger, and pulled it back. “Then you’d just be stuck with the others. And if you think I’m bad - what the hell did you do to him, Addams?”
This made her blink hard against a searing anger that coursed through her jaw. Not another one, accusing her as if she’d ever done anything except be who she was, anything except try to stay out of his way so they wouldn’t hurt each other, wouldn’t do the harm she knew they could do.
“I haven’t done anything to him,” she said dully.
“Then why is it every case he’s on with you is trouble? I mean, one minute he’s doing his job – okay, it a complicated job, but he’s doing it. Next thing, there’s a dead woman clutching his ID and he’s bought two tickets for the shuttle, headed toward Connecticut.”
Jaguar frowned. “Did he go?”
“I don’t know. Most of the security is pre-boarding, and he’s got a few tricks he uses when he doesn’t want to be seen. You’d know more about that than me.”
She did. Alex had a knack for obscuring his presence when he didn’t want to be found.
“What I really want to know,” Paul continued, “is what the deal is with you two. I understand a little fun now and then between consenting adults, but I’ll be damned if I’ll see a good supervisor ruined just because he’s lost his head over a -” he blustered, controlled himself.
“Over a what, Paul? An empath? A piece of ass? An injun? Which derogatory appellation are you groping for with your feeble little mind? And why do you assume I know anything more than you do?”
“Because,” Paul said, “he told me you were involved.”
“Told you? You spoke with him?”
“Yeah. He called in. Twice.”
Jaguar stood and grabbed his arm. “What kind of shit is this? You just sit there and let these rat fuck pencil pushers take my job and all the time you know where he is?”
“I don’t know that,” Paul said. “He didn’t say. Just listen for a minute. Before all this happened, he told me about the - situation. Or, at least, what he thinks of it.”
“The women I’m working with have Phase Psychosis,” she said. “Maxxed out from exposure to Artemis. Moon mining, Paul. And someone is trying to push through crystallization plants on the Planetoids. Is that the situation you mean?”
“Yeah - not so loud, okay?” He cast a glance around, peered out the door quickly. “And while we’re here, what’s your problem, gunning for Miriam? She’s the only one against the Lunar plant.”
“She’s lying about that, Paul.”
“I saw the tape of her conversation with Barone.”
“You know how easy it is to fake something like that? Skip it. Either you believe me or you don’t.” She sat back hard in her chair. “When’s the last time you heard from Alex?”
“Yesterday. That was the second call. The first one, he says he’s got Farley, and Nance Faddegon is dead. That’s all. The second one - Jesus, this is a mess, Addams. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”
“Probably,” she noted, “a little more directly than you are.”
“Maybe so. The second call’s a message on my telecom, and it didn’t make sense. Didn’t even sound like him. Something about the Mother running the show, and - and just crap.”
“What kind of crap?”
He threw his arms out and held them there. “He said he didn’t want to kill you.”
Jaguar let these words find a place to settle in her psyche. “Didn’t want to kill me?” she asked.
“Yeah. Just like that. ‘Tell her I don’t want to kill her. That’s why I’m leaving’.”
“Are you sure he meant me? Not some other her?”
“I’m sure. I had a bad moment when I thought it was that woman on the bridge, but it wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
Paul struggled with himself a moment. “Beautiful. He used the word beautiful. She’s so beautiful, I won’t kill her. No matter what he says.”
Jaguar sat very still and listened to her own heart beating out its recurring theme. Alive. I’m alive. Alive. I’m alive.
“Do you still have the message?” she asked.
“Are you kidding? I got rid of it fast.”
“But you’re sure you’re remembering it right?”
“I’m sure. I wouldn’t forget something like that.”
“And you deleted it,” she said. If she could have listened to the message itself, she might have picked up residual information from his voice. Like Alex, she could read physical evidence in ways Paul couldn’t. Now she knew little more than she knew before. He was with Brendan. He was being exposed to Artemis. He was in trouble.
“Paul, can you get me back with the women?”
Paul shook his head. “Not an ice cube’s chance in hell. Got a second choice?”
“Find Alex.”
“Right. How? Like I said, when he don’t want to be found. . . .”
Jaguar chewed on her lower lip and thought. Alex had a remarkable capacity for invisibility. He didn’t so much block her contact, as disappear from view altogether. It was very disconcerting. And if he really thought he’d harm her, he’d hide from her.
She pushed her chair back and stood. “If I need your help to find Alex, can I count on it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”
She gave him a long, steady glare, saw that he probably meant it as much as anything else he said. She moved toward the door.
“Where’re you going?” Paul asked.
“Somewhere else,” she said. “Any objections?”
“Just don’t leave the Planetoid. You aren’t going to, are you?”
“You really want to know?” she asked.
Paul pulled a handkerchief from his suit pocket and wiped it across his face. “No,” he said, his voice muffled by the cloth. “I don’t want to know a damn thing at all.”
* * * *
Jaguar left the building and she walked.
She walked down Yonge, past all the sporty shops and little bakeries and cafes. The smell of fresh brewed coffee trailed after her from the tables of people who chatted amiably in the sun, not one of them knowing how close they were to having their little world altered wildly or perhaps destroyed. She walked and continued to walk until she found herself at the Toronto Sanctuary, where she let herself in to the breeding complex and went to the cages where the two jaguars, Hecate and Chaos, spent their days.
She stood in front of their cage, hands on the bars that stood between them. Chaos, the male, stood and prowled to her, sat and stared at her as she stared at him.
“Where is he?” she asked, but he didn’t answer.
Jaguars weren’t trackers. They were opportunistic hunters, as she was, ready to change direction at a moment’s notice. Alex was like that, too, which would make him more difficult to find. What she needed was a bloodhound. And she needed it sooner rather than later because they were being ambushed.
Miriam as much as told her so. She was making sure they were removed, for reasons Jaguar couldn’t yet determine. Clearly she was up to her suave little neck in Artemis, clearly doing something with Barone if
they made a fake tape together. Jaguar had to give her some grudging respect for that move. With her soft clothes and soft ways, Miriam played a hard game. Jaguar would have to play a better one, because both Alex and the Planetoid were being sold down the river. But what was her strategy, and why did she need Alex out of the way to accomplish it?
She sighed, and brought her thoughts into focus. She’d found him before, and she’d find him now. She didn’t have a bloodhound, but she had Chaos. She had Hecate. She had her arts. She rubbed at the dried mint she always carried in her pocket, breathed in the sharp, clean scent of it, and spoke to her namesake.
I myself, spirit in flesh, speak.
Chaos’ gold eyes took her in and floated her in to that place where she saw most clearly. She gathered her energy, her intent, and sent it out toward Alex, toward his spirit, which she’d drawn closer to than any other spirit in all her days within the particular piece of flesh she occupied.
Alex, where are you?
Spirit traveling, moving through nowhere and standing still but going, and she found herself against a soft wall of light, glowing and impermeable. It spiraled, thickened, spun itself into a great sphere hung in darkness above her, splashed with a trail of blood. Her intent and her desire pounded against the barrier, but got nowhere.
Alex. Where are you?
The thickening mist consumed her thoughts, muffled and dispersed them. They would not reach their destination. Not through this viscous obscurity.
The impermeable bank of compression surrounded her, and she couldn’t breathe through it, couldn’t stay afloat in it. It kept sucking her down. Down into a place where there was no air at all, and no reason for any.
Here? Are you here?
Fear wrapped around her. Was he here, in a place of hopelessness where she couldn’t reach him, couldn’t grab his hand as he’d grabbed hers to drag her back from death? And if she couldn’t find him? If he died or became someone who would kill her and she had to face that again, as she had with Nick - what would she do? It would be much worse than Nick, in fact. She’d never shared with him what she shared with Alex.
A new reality suddenly became clear to her. Her days would be emptied out by his absence. She’d never looked at that before. Never allowed herself to even consider the possibility.
Alex, where are you?
Fear and desire. But this wasn’t either. It was despair, the kind that could swallow her. She could find no emotional footing to get away from it. Nothing to hang onto here. No positive energy at all. Rage or terror would be better than this.
She was a positive, being drawn into a negative. Physically and magnetically pulled.
“No,” she gasped. “Let me go.”
And the fog lifted. The sense of suffocation dispersed. She stood alone, in front of the cages where Chaos paced and Hecate made noises at him. Alone with the winged creature named desire, beginning to stir.
She clenched and unclenched her hands, feeling the tingle that signaled a return from empathic space. Her desire was pulled into fear, and that dragged her into despair. The part of her that remained interested and aloof was glad to know this, but the rest of her understood this was only the beginning of the journey. Because the only way to combat the despair was to allow the desire to increase its energy, make it stronger than the fear.
What was her desire? The years she’d worked with him, found a friend in him, found someone she could trust - she wanted that to continue. There was a solid reality to his presence. He was always himself, even when it irritated the hell out of her. He had integrity, compassion, and the patience of the turning earth. She wanted to continue walking near that presence.
Was that desire?
Or was it the fire she felt when he kissed her. The growing warmth she tried to deny, even after he’d admitted to his desire for her. Silly of her, when she thought about it. There wasn’t any reason why she shouldn’t sleep with him, except that it could complicate her work life. But they were adults. Once the ardor cooled, they’d go back to working together and be fine. It might take time, but they’d do it because they both loved their work. So why wouldn’t she sleep with him? That, she supposed, was the real question.
She didn’t know the answer because she wasn’t ready to let herself know. Whenever it came up, she pushed it down, away, out.
“And that,” she muttered to herself, “would be the fear.”
Chaos rolled over on his back and made a noise of contentment. Hecate turned her golden head toward him and yawned. Marie, who ran the breeding program here, had started a protocol that gave the two jaguars time out of their cage to hunt. She’d hoped a more natural life would relax them enough to breed, and her hopes were well founded. She told Jaguar recently that Hecate was pregnant.
Maybe, she thought, that’s what she needed to do, too. Go hunting. If she hunted, maybe then she’d know if she wanted to mate.
“Okay,” she said to the cats. “I’ll hunt. And I think I know somebody who can help me.”
Chapter 11
The following day, Miriam Whitehall took George Shafritz to lunch and had a long conversation with him about the trouble in Zone 12. The restaurant was a good one, and Miriam ordered good wine to go with their shrimp cocktails and salads. Her own manner was subdued, almost sad. She was concerned, she said, because she didn’t know if the trouble indicated a deeper problem.
“I don’t think so,” Governor Shafritz said, speaking tentatively. He smelled a political move in the works, but wasn’t sure what it would be. “Twelve’s got a rep for the best.”
Miriam rolled her eyes. “I know. Best technicians. The VR site. And the best success rate. But that was mostly from Dzarny and Addams.”
“They were good. Did some spectacular jobs.”
“And look where it’s gotten them,” Miriam said, clucking her tongue.
“A shame, isn’t it? Not that Addams’ behavior is a surprise, but Dzarny. He seemed reliable as rain.”
“Maybe,” Miriam said, “ But he’s also - well, you know. And in so deep with that Addams woman there was bound to be trouble.”
Shafritz did know. Everyone knew how Alex was about Dr. Addams, and hardly anyone understood why.
“They have a word for that, don’t they?” Miriam asked. “When people like them go bad.”
“Shadowed,” Shafritz said. “I think they call it shadowed.”
“Yes. That’s the word.” She brooded over it for a moment, then asked cautiously, “It’s not catching, is it?”
“No,” Shafritz said. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“We really don’t know what happens to people when they - you know – do what they do. And it does seem there’s some sort of emotional breakdown going on in 12, doesn’t there? They’ve had a suicide recently, too, don’t forget.”
Shafritz frowned down into his shrimp cocktail and said nothing.
“Who I’m really surprised at,” Miriam continued, “is Paul Dinardo.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. He must’ve seen this coming. Must’ve known there were problems. So why didn’t he do something about it before it got this far out of hand? He’s always supported the two of them. And he didn’t look well at the meeting, did he?”
“Not particularly,” Shafritz said, “But he usually doesn’t.”
“Well, I suppose he’s under a lot of pressure, with all the fuss about the Lunar plants coming here when the moratorium’s lifted.”
“Do you think it will be?” Shafritz asked, trying not to sound too hopeful. He and Miriam were on opposite sides of this issue. He felt strongly that it would be good to bring innovative industry to the Planetoid system, especially with someone as powerful as Larry Barone backing it up.
“Unless we can find a better way to fight, your side will win the day, George,” she said graciously.
Shafritz had to admit she was a good sport about her losses, even when she fought like hell to win. “I appreciate your lack of rancor about it, Miriam,” h
e said. “I really do.”
Miriam laughed. “Well, if I have to lose, I like losing to the best. Mr. Barone really is quite a lovely man. Very grounded. And his ideas on management are brilliant. Aside from the Lunar processing plant, I think he’d be quite a valuable friend to the Planetoid. I’m afraid we’ll need quite a few friends, if this kind of disturbance continues.”
“Surely it won’t, Miriam. With Dzarny and Addams out of the way, things should quiet down.”
“I don’t know,” Miriam said. “I have a bad feeling about it all. I really do. I think we should be ready for more trouble. And if I’m right, you’ll have to buy me a bottle of champagne.”
“That would be no loss,” Shafritz said. “No loss at all.”
Miriam touched his hand lightly. She felt she’d made good progress here, laid the groundwork for what would be. When it was all over, quite a few governors would remember that Miriam Whitehall had seen trouble ahead, and knew best how to manage it.
* * * *
Jaguar sat in the dimly lit bar, a glass of beer in front of her. Occasionally, she picked the glass up and sucked at it hard. Then she put it down and stared at the remaining contents.
“Wow,” Gerry said, “I mean, do you think he really killed someone? I can’t imagine Alex doing that. Unless he’s cracked up. Gone over the moon. Bonked out. I mean, he’s always been like rock steady. Whaddya think happened to him?”
She growled softly, and her hand closed harder on the glass.
“You must feel like shit, too,” he continued. “I mean, you’re suspended. And you don’t even know if Alex is dead or alive, right?”
Her growl deepened, and grew louder.
“You wanna talk about it?” Gerry asked politely.
“Fuck no,” she snarled back, and returned to silence.
He leaned back, his chair balancing on two legs, his hands crossed on his abdomen. She was supposed to sing with his band tonight, and he had a feeling he was out a vocalist unless he could bring her around. Somewhere in the recesses of his thoughts, which were as dimly lit as the bar, he understood this wasn’t the most important item on the agenda this evening. She was suspended. One of her prisoners was dead, and she didn’t even know what happened. Alex was gone, there was a warrant out for his arrest, a Teacher and another woman were dead. Gerry knew this was serious stuff, but the neural connections that would make it serious for him had yet to be completed.
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