She picked at the small black device for a minute, the presence in her hand reminded her Mr. Carroll still owed her a great deal of money. Well, chump change to him, but a fortune to her. She stuffed the derm sheet and the holo recording into the jacket and clutched her stomach. With the credits she had earned, they would eat well for a few weeks. She used the chair to pull herself standing, holding onto it to stop the spinning room.
She could not bear the thought of admitting to Penny she had caved and dosed up. She dreaded the stares of the art students again; she had betrayed the charcoal angels.
After a glance at the clock, she stumbled over to the shower tube. Her body refused to let her mind rid itself of zoom. Anna brushed at the derm patch, ripping it loose and throwing it into the corner. The pain made her stumble into the wall; a droplet of bright crimson glistened against the white of her arm where the chems had weakened her skin. She knew she could not free herself without help; perhaps she would go see this Mardling fellow.
She would not let the zoom win.
ree of the sickness of withdrawal, she seemed at rights when she had met Mr. Carroll at the chippery. He paid her as promised and hinted he might have more work coming up. Lying was something she had gotten rather good at when she had her faculties about her, and she left him thinking all was well. He would give her a ring when the time came.
As fate would have it, the art class was on the other end of the same campus where Mardling worked. Having spent the night in the city proper, she did not need to cross the police line and went directly to the university on the London Orbital maglev. Petrified of running into more Crossmen, she kept her head down, scurried through the platform, and hopped a shuttle to the campus.
Surrounded by people a year or three her junior, she felt uncomfortable even breathing the same air as the Propers. They were all students with promising lives ahead of them, and she was dirty trash.
No. The voice in her head protested. The shout echoed through her thoughts. She was trash, but she would not be dirty trash any more. Her hand rubbed the legs of her nylon pants. Her dignity lay in a tatter, but what little she found, she would cling to. An evil little smile curled onto her lips as she daydreamed about electrocuting Constable Brown if he tried to take his tax again. The smile faded. In all probability, she would let him do it. Killing a policeman would bring far too much heat down on her, and probably the rest of Coventry, but it was fun to think about on the ride.
Pale yellow walls surrounded the tiniest waiting room she had ever seen. Old fake leather chairs lined up against three walls, crowding around a little table full of e-magazines like herd animals looking for water. A lilting metal desk in one corner held an overweight elderly woman more interested in what lived under her fingernails than anything going on in the world beyond.
Anna stood at the edge of the desk, glancing at thirty years of collected kitsch from various vacations and office supply vendors, as well as awards for long-term service.
Didn’t know they gave office trophies for nail maintenance.
The file stopped sliding back and forth, the woman looked up with an angry glare. Anna glanced to the right.
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t say anything.”
The old woman squinted through her. Anna’s lips had not moved, but perhaps her frustration had let one leak on a strand of telepathy. Her eyes flicked back to the turquoise claws, striated with white and blue. The file scratched back and forth like a master violinist.
“Is Doctor Mardling in?”
Without looking up, the secretary answered in a begrudging moan. “What class are you in?”
“No class. I’m here…” She squeezed the little box again, looking at the text to the right of the apparitional head. “About his Horizons project… I wanted to talk to him about volunteering.”
“The Doctor isn’t seein’ anyone today ‘bout that. ‘E’s quite busy with his class schedule.”
Anna’s gaze hit the floor with a thud she almost heard. She stood there, silent as furniture, trying not to let her disappointment leak out of her eyes. A few minutes later, the nail file came to a halt again, but the old woman did not look up.
“You still ‘ere?”
Anna hooked her thumbs in her pants pockets, slouching. A wisp of cool air caressed her waist.
The secretary suppressed a snarl and shot her a glare. She opened her mouth to speak, but paused. “‘Old on a minute. Wot’s that?”
Leaning forward, the woman used the nail file to point at the two blue spots where the tattooed pixie’s antennae protruded over Anna’s belt line.
“A tattoo.”
She frowned with a protruding lower lip. “What of?”
Anna pushed her pants down over her hip far enough to show the tattoo without revealing anything too rude. She was thankful she had not gone with the original design.
“Cute.” The file resumed sawing at her nails. “That one of them faeries or what have you?”
“Yeah… It’s a Pixie. It’s kind of my nickname.”
The fiddle scratched to a stop as the woman’s gaze flicked up to lock with hers. “‘Ave a seat, luv.”
She twirled the file over her fingers, and poked it through a holographic button. The presence of an open audio channel made the room feel larger.
“Doctor Jim. That faerie, pixie, whatever you were talking about’s ‘ere. Shall I send ‘er in?”
Something heavy hit the ground in the back room. Anna jumped as the impact came through the floor. Blinds parted at the behest of two fingers, and a pair of brown eyes stared at her. A woozy feeling spread through her mind for a moment before the blinds snapped closed.
“Send her in straight away.”
Following the pointing file, Anna stepped through a self-opening grey door into an office not much larger than the pitiful waiting area. The man on the other side of the desk seemed in a tizzy, spiraling about the space in his attempt to collect the contents of a dropped box. Pants the color of over-creamed coffee matched the tweed blazer draped over the back of a steel chair painted hospital green. His hair looked more disheveled than the portrait let on, as if he had been up all night. Shimmering clear boards glowed with squiggles of blue and green writing and sketches of brains, and more math than she had ever seen in her life.
With the whoosh of the closing door, he spun to face her and smiled over an armload of datapads. His shirt hung open two buttons and he wore the anticipatory grin of someone going to a job interview, not giving one.
He extended a hand, leaning to the side to retain his bundle. “Hello there. I’m Doctor Mardling.”
She returned a pleasant handshake and sat in a battered brown excuse for a chair on wheels. He tromped to the side of the room and dropped the mass of electronics into a thin plastisteel box all at once. The order with which he kept them seemed to fit his general disheveled state. Anna stifled a giggle, having expected some sort of pompous ass from the look on the face of his hologram.
“I’m Anna.”
He fell into his seat, sending the belabored squeak of decades-old rusty springs crawling through the air. Feet up, then down, he rubbed his chin and leaned forward. The look on his face made her think he found the one nugget of gold in an entire mine. Pulsing strangeness swam through her head; she couldn’t tell if it was the zoom or lack of sleep.
“Are you all right, guv’na? You seem a bit edgy.”
“It’s a pleasure you meet you, Anna.” He at last settled upon leaning back in the chair with feet down and hands tapping the desk. “Blinds… Lights…”
The room darkened as the window blinds rotated closed and the lights dimmed almost all the way off.
Anna crossed her arms through her lap and leaned forward. “So what’s this all about then?”
“It’s about basic human rights. You are here because of the Horizons project, correct? About a certain sort of individual the crown isn’t too fond of?”
One finger picked idly at his cheek.
His lips twitched as if he wanted to grin, but was too nervous. She swallowed hard. Saying the wrong thing to the wrong person could create a whirlwind of shit in short order.
“I suppose. You’re not with them?”
“Certainly not.” Insecurity faded for a moment to perfect confidence. “You seem a bit of a mess, luv.”
Shame reddened her cheeks. Doctor Mardling’s expression changed in reaction to the images of self-degradation in her thoughts. Anna fidgeted, unable to look at him anymore, afraid he would see a dirty drugged-out whore and not the charcoal seraph she longed to be.
“I…” Her hand covered the red mark on her left arm, kneading at it. “I’m…”
The cumbersome metal beast of a chair creaked as he leaned forward and sprang to his feet. He ducked around the desk, sat on the corner, and took her cheek in his hand.
“My dear, you are greater than you could ever have imagined. You need to stop abusing yourself.”
Eyes blurred with tears, she shied away as he touched the red spot on her wrist. The drug had a few hours of effect left in it, not enough to keep her high, but enough to keep away the need for more. The sense of his fingers on the tender spot was as embarrassing as if he had ripped her clothes off.
He knows I’m a piece of shit.
“You’re not a piece of shit, Anna.” His hand forced her to look at him. “Those grotty bastards do not possess even the slightest inkling of what you are. No, girl, you are capable of great and wondrous things. Your dignity is in there… somewhere.” He patted her atop the head. “I would love to help you find it.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “Sorry, guv’na, but…”
Dr. Mardling smiled. His voice entered her mind. All things are not as they appear to be.
“You…” Anna swallowed, unable to breathe at the realization there were other psionics. Of course, she knew there were, but she’d never met one before who wasn’t either running, on the leash, or dead. Overwhelmed, she flung herself onto him, clinging to his shirt. “You’re psionic?”
He gathered her hands from his shoulders and eased her into her seat. “It would do well to keep it down, my dear.” He rushed to the window and looked out. “The fools think I’m some boffin in tweed.”
Anna giggled.
“Let me have a look at you then.” Dr. Mardling leaned on the near side of his desk, staring dizziness through her mind. Minutes passed that left her feeling rushes of hot, cold, floating, and abject terror. He stopped when she trembled. “Easy, luv.”
“What did you do?” She clamped her arms over her chest in an effort to stop shaking.
“Electrokinesis is a very rare gift. Not many can exert control over electricity. Little telepathy as well, but I get the sense you do not avail yourself of it much.”
“No, sir. I’ve been too scared of the CSB. Haven’t done much of anything for a while.”
“Hmm.” Mardling rubbed his goatee, eyes hardening. “Those blighters are a bit of a nuisance, are they not? Granted, they are much tougher when they are detaining children. Those dimwits can scarcely contend with ordinary psionics. They have no idea about us.”
“Ordinary psionics?” Anna blinked. “That’s a bit of a contradiction, innit?”
“I will explain more as we go.” He grabbed his coat and rushed to the door. “Come on then. Let’s get you scrubbed up.”
Anna forced herself standing, too ashamed to make eye contact. “Yes, sir.”
hame sent her to a small campus market for cosmetics to hide the red square on her forearm. Doctor Mardling was kind enough to wait while she sat for the art class. She forced herself to remain still, perched on a pedestal naked but for a drape over her lap. Dr. Mardling hovered at the door, chatting with Professor Gresham for the most part. Every so often, he’d send a reassuring telepathic whisper into her head.
Her old friend the stuffed owl sat above the door, though she’d found a new thing to focus on. Tiny wrinkles formed around Mardling’s eyes as he smiled at the art instructor, the two men joking as if they were old classmates. He seemed unassuming, unthreatening, one of the kindest men she had ever laid eyes on.
Mardling laughed at something Gresham said, loud enough to turn the heads of several nearby students. Anna could not help herself but grin at his hands-in-pockets posture and whimsical affect. The sense of having someone there to “hold her hand” made the arduous two hours tolerable.
While the students shuffled off to use the bathroom and pursue snacks on a twenty-minute break, she hid behind the changing partition in the back, bundled in the white sheet. It would be a waste of effort to dress, but she could not bring herself to sit out in the open. Dr. Mardling knocked on the barricade after a few minutes of quiet isolation.
“Brought you some coffee, Anna.” His hand came around the edge with a cup.
She took it in both hands to her chest, siphoning the warmth through the thin sheet. “Thank you, Doctor.”
The drink was about done when the sound of students returning sent a shiver through her body.
“We are ready for you, luv,” whispered Gresham.
Anna cringed, embarrassment mixed with the first physical signs it was time for more zoom: dull channels of pain up and down her bones. This is art, right. High class. She held her head up and strode back to her perch.
With the period over, she dressed behind the partition and sat for a minute hugging her clothing to her skin. When the din of departing students faded to nothing, she skulked out into the room. The spot on her arm burned a sense of unworthiness into her as she moved among the easels, refusing to look at them. Mardling’s hand caught her arm, and she startled up to see his smile.
“You should see how they came out.”
Anna pulled at him, trying to leave, but he held her firm.
“You need to see them.”
He walked her around from one to the next, making sure she studied them all. Twenty-four versions of her, innocent and pure, stared off at the undrawn owl, in contemplation of some mysterious question. How many hundreds of men had seen her naked at the club, yet none of them saw this.
“Perception is in the mind of the observer.” He squeezed her shoulder.
She glanced up into his eager-schoolboy face, still perplexed at why he had been so excited about meeting her.
“You are a beautiful woman,” he whispered. “The only person here who sees you as a tramp is you.”
She shuddered, thumb rubbing against the sore spot. “I don’t want to be trash anymore. I’ve tried to quit, I just keep running back to it.”
“Shrugging off that leash takes a lot of work. Fortunately, you have keenly piqued my interest and I shall help you.” He glanced at his NetMini for the time. “Come along then, we can get to the nitty-gritty of the research after a quick stopover at the clinic.”
“Clinic?”
“Yes, you see… When you introduce substances like that into your body, certain physiological changes take place in the brain to cope with it. Over time, these changes create dependency, which triggers both the craving for the substance as well as the withdrawal symptoms that come on when the chemical is absent. The good lads at the clinic use nanobots to make minor adjustments in regions of the brain… the subthalamic nucleus, dorsal striatum, and sometimes the medial prefrontal cortex. Most especially the nucleus accumbens septi… that is where the incredibly addictive drugs do the most damage.”
Anna stared at him without saying a word for a full fifteen seconds, and blinked. “Well, you certainly sound like a doctor.”
“Geneticist mostly; however, as of late I have chiefly studied the brain.” He helped her turn a corner and guided her down some steps to the outside.
She forced a plaintive smile. “Um, right… about that… I’m not so sure I want some tosser rooting around my brain.”
“Rubbish. It is all done with nanobots. You will not feel pain.”
Drab grey, the waiting section of the clinic was as lifeless as Anna felt. Ten hours
after waking up in a motel room, the lack of zoom had changed her head into a mass of iron slag wrapped in cotton. Her brain screamed at her for making it suffer painful withdrawal, then the tease of a dose, and now nothing. She imagined tiny little brains sitting in a nest, mouths agape and chirping like chicks waiting for worms. The thought was so patently ridiculous she burst out laughing in a silent room. When the humor left her, she leaned her head back against the hard metal wall.
Next time I hit I’m gonna see those things.
Doctor Mardling glanced at her from the counter a few meters away, lifting an eyebrow at the sudden outburst. His eyebrows jammed together, a face she thought he would have made at the sight of tiny cheeping brains. With a shake of his head, he returned his attention to the clerk.
His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Zoom. Yes, the narcotic. Surely, you have heard of it working here? Synthetic psychedelic with opioid enhancements… you do have a programme for something like that, have you not?”
“Is she your wife?”
“No.”
“Daughter?”
“Hardly. Do I look that old?”
“Sister?”
“Oh for Pete’s sake, are you going to play silly buggers all day or get on with it? She is my student.” He flashed an ID from the college.
“Beggin your pardon mate, but regs won’t let us process her on your register unless she’s a blood relative or spouse.”
“Do it on hers then, I’ll cover the cost.” He waved her over.
“Give ‘er a swipe.” The clerk pushed a small box across the counter.
“I don’t have a ‘mini.” Anna offered a hesitant smile at the Doctor. “It’s a long story.”
The clerk grumbled; the irritation of having to do something more than gather dust was quite evident on his face.
Doctor Mardling threw his hand about as he rambled at the ceiling. “Oh, sorry about distracting you from slummocking about, they do pay you to do more than just warm a chair, do they not?”
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