by Alex Hughes
“Won’t they catch him on the test?”
“Better than even odds they won’t. Teleporters don’t always show up on the screenings, especially with another talent to mask the signature. To look at, he’s a midrange telepath. He can take a few classes, learn a few skills in a roomful of loud minds and probably no one will notice. Opt out of the Guild when they ask, do just fine. It’ll be rough around the time of the screening, but it’ll get easier if everyone’s careful.”
I shifted in my seat, pulling at the seat belt so I could face her. “Cherabino, you’ve got to understand. He has to be trained. Especially with the teleporting—we can’t let that go. He could do damage to himself or someone else. And he needs a solid ethical footing. But there’s a friend of Kara’s, an independent associated with the Irish here in the city. We’re going to contact him, and we’re going to pay him to talk to us about details. I have the feeling if he won’t train Jacob—quietly—he’ll know someone else who will.” The thought of this working—of me sticking one to the Guild—was lifting that depressive feeling. That, and the telepathy coming back and, though I wouldn’t tell Cherabino, shooting holes in things.
Cherabino shook her head. “You yourself said the Guild has absolute legal jurisdiction.”
“If you’re Registered, sure. Unless you protest or you apply somewhere else. Over a certain level it’s mandatory—but there are loopholes. And hell, Isabella, I’m going to do everything in my power to put him directly in the middle of one.”
“My sister says she won’t move to the Cayman Islands.”
“They aren’t recognized by the US Guild anyway. And you have to be born in Russia to join their Guild, most of Europe is hostile, and India has an extradition treaty. But the Irish Guild . . . the Irish Independent Telepathic Corp takes Americans, if you don’t have a record and you can convince them you have something to offer them. We get him trained and we apply there. It’ll be a fight, but we’ll get him through the system, and the Guild won’t be able to do a damn thing. He can live right here in Atlanta and the treaties make him untouchable.”
A cautious hope was starting to grow in her mind as she pulled to a stop at a stoplight. “All my sister wants is to raise him herself. If this would let her keep him at home . . .”
“It’s hell living with an untrained telepath, worse with a teleporter,” I said, with strong warning. “And keeping the secret will be worse. It’ll take the whole family. The earliest the Corp will take him is fifteen. It’s a long time. And he’ll need an anyonide shielding installed to block—”
She was suddenly there, her lips landing on mine in a short, intense kiss that half merged our minds in a beautiful, intense moment. Before I could really get into it, she pulled away; the light had turned green.
I blinked, trying to catch up. “What—?”
“Thank you. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. My sister will be thrilled.” She looked back up and put her hand on my cheek; I had to block quickly to keep the sexual thoughts from seeping out. “Thank you.”
“What does this—?”
She pulled away, and got stiff. “Just let it be, okay?”
“Okay.”
The rest of the trip was spent in silence, with me doing my best to hold my fractured thoughts to myself, control my headache—and wonder what the hell that had meant.
CHAPTER 18
“What is it?” Paulsen’s voice was annoyed, and I almost turned around and left right then.
“Come in,” she said.
If anything, the pile of papers on her desk was higher than I’d ever seen it. A huge pile of folders climbed the side of the desk, and brightly colored sticky notes covered the back wall like shingles. She’d even stuck a few to the cactus—one of the blooms was half-broken in favor of a bright yellow note about payroll.
“I had a question,” I said, stalling for time.
She gestured to the chair, which was currently covered in yet more paper. I moved a pile and sat carefully on the edge of what was left.
“What’s the question?”
I couldn’t shake what Cherabino had said. “Would a PI license work? For the certification requirement?”
“I don’t see why not. Assuming you’re eligible. Why?”
“The Guild for certain isn’t going to renew my license, and you did say I needed a certification to keep my job.”
She made a face, looking exhausted. “There’s a case to be made for independence, for sure. That’s part of how I got you back on board the second time. You’re a . . . rare commodity, in that respect. We hire a few PIs occasionally, when we’re booked up and need some basic footwork done. It might be easier to get you accepted in under that bracket than otherwise. Assuming you can deal with the Guild. They called twice this week, and it’s not a recommendation.” She sighed. “Even if you survive, though, your hours are going to get cut back. You won’t be able to do as much out in the field; we just can’t afford to share with Homicide that much. I’m losing another interrogator for certain.”
I nodded, numbly. “Those are personnel files there on the floor, that huge stack.”
She nodded. “Somebody’s going to have to be cut. Several someones. And the uniformed police force is no exception. We have to do another round.”
“Why not fire me? Why give me the chance, then? Especially with the Guild calling you. I don’t understand.”
She leaned forward, and glanced behind me. “Close the door.”
I did as she said. I sat back down with a sinking feeling.
“Look, the truth of the matter is that we don’t pay for your health insurance. We don’t have to pay any state or federal taxes on you. The Guild handles all of that, and what it doesn’t handle, there’s a legal loophole to cover it. You have one of the highest confession rates in the department and you get results. Furthermore, I’m a sucker for a hard-luck story. You check a lot of boxes here. You also need a hell of a lot of handholding, kicks in the ass, and enough drug tests that the lab sends me flowers on my birthday. But you’re half the cost of a cop in your job, and your results are as good or better.”
“That’s why you’ve been lenient.“
Paulsen shrugged, looking sad. “I like you, but I like a lot of the guys we’re having to put out on the street, and their families are not going to understand. Frankly, it’s a numbers game right now. It’s hard to say no to half the cost when half the cost is doing twice the work. I’m willing to work with you on the rest of the crap. I’ve been doing that for years. I’ll kick you in the ass every day if I have to, and Lord knows I do enough handholding in this department already for a whole fleet of kindergarten teachers. Even the top brass agree with me on keeping you on, with a simple overtime cut—like I said, it’s a numbers game. But this new policy. . . . Well, there’s a reason they call it policy. Politics is what it is, pure and simple. It’s not about the money. It’s about getting votes in next year’s election.”
She folded her hands. “Have you thought about becoming a private investigator for real?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You should start thinking about options. A backup plan at least.”
“You think I need a backup plan?”
“It would be wise. Did I answer the question you came in here for?”
And here was the fork, the decision, the moment. Should I tell her? Swartz would say, Absolutely, take responsibility, and it was high time I did. “I screwed up.”
“How?”
I told her about Bob, and the phone call from the federal guy. At the end of it, she looked even more tired. “And he was okay with you having this information?”
“He said he was.”
“Then you are a lucky, lucky son of a bitch. That could have gotten us all hip-deep in more crap than you have any concept of. Hell, we might have been swimming in agents and jurisdiction faster than you can say when.”
I paused. “Am I in trouble?”
“For getting Bob to rai
d federal databases to get information you probably could have gotten for a please and a thank-you? Are you in trouble? Yes, you’re in trouble. Go out and get me results now. A nice, shiny arrest would be perfect. Or come hell or high water, numbers game or none, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
* * *
The medic met me in the lobby of the medical office building next door to the hospital. It was a place of worn cushions and waiting rather than panic and ghosts, close enough for convenience for him and far enough to protect me. He’d agreed without much fight, but then again, he was Guild.
The cushy waiting area in the lobby was already full of people flipping through magazines and talking in a small, dull roar. The other side, the side with four uncomfortable chairs, a razor-sharp prickly plant, and a small desk with a phone, was empty except for me, with a good fifteen feet of empty space.
Boredom, waiting, and discomfort seemed the trend of the space, and that I could deal with. No one was dying here; no one had died recently, or died again and again in one spot over time. No one’s emotions here would try to kill me. No cops were judging me, no suspects trying to outdo each other in mental volume and protests of innocence. Actually, this lobby was quite restful. If it hadn’t been for my worry about Swartz, I’d have camped out here for the winter.
When the medic came through the doors, no one noticed. After the Tech Wars, they’d worn robes, big pretentious showy robes with a large Guild purple seal. The idea was to identify anyone with medical training—especially anyone who could do Guild-certified medical miracles—so you could see them at a glance. Starting a few decades after Koshna, though, when the Guild got everything it wanted while the normals dealt with a staggering economy and few options, well, the men in the showy robes got shot. They got shot enough that even the Guild had to change its mind about dress code.
So now, the microkinesis medic dressed in normal blue scrubs, with a tiny lapel pin with the Guild seal sitting right below his chin. You’d almost have to know what it was to recognize it.
I was grateful to see the man was a stranger, and just a little too old to be one of my contemporaries; he wouldn’t expect me to know him even if I was active. Mid- to late forties, tall and thin, he said his name was Vega, I believe. He had a presence to him, like most of the good medics did, a humility that said he held lives in his hands every day . . . and never was able to save them all.
Vega came over, nodding to me before taking a seat smoothly. Deep circles under his eyes attested to his recent labor, and his hands—before he clasped them firmly together—were shaking.
It had been a long time since I’d interacted with a medic; even when we were in training, our specialties didn’t really overlap. He was concerned with the fine-grade physical world, manipulating cells and nerves and organ sections, forcing a faster rate of cell division for critical nerve healing, breaking up the proteins that let a cancer cell divide. Pulling out toxins from a failing liver or, in this case, forcing the cells in the artery to divide and bind together, the tissue to grow faster and stronger. My work, on the other hand, while just as delicate, had had everything to do with the mind—the physical body, to me, was still a mystery.
“You were the one who wanted me to meet you here,” Vega said quietly. “What do you need to know?”
“How is Swartz? The old man you healed as a favor. How bad is the long-term damage? What were you able to fix?” I paused. “Could you use regular language please? Every time I talk to the doctors here, I can’t understand them.”
“Okay. Let me think how to say this.” He took a breath. “It was good that you called me when you did. The damage in the blood vessels was extensive, and the tissue wasn’t going to hold up well on its own. The surgeon, well, I am certain he is qualified in his own specialty, and the patient was alive and stable. But there was damage from the surgery that needed to be repaired—and repaired carefully. A very difficult task, but the results, I believe, were good. How can I say this in plain language . . . ? The immediate area has been cleared of blockages—which I ensured that the body absorbed safely. Plainly, I had to force cell regrowth in an extensive section of the arterial wall. I believe the scarring should heal cleanly, with enough elasticity to improve long-term quality of life.”
I knew he would be expensive, but I’d talked to the accountant, and I had money saved up. “What does ‘improve’ mean, exactly? In plain language—for a heart patient? Swartz won’t do well confined to a bed.”
The medic sat back in the chair, as if looking for more support for a tired body. “In plain language, then. He should be able to walk around normally, even climb stairs if he takes them slowly. He’ll be able to live normally if he’ll pay attention to his body and its limits. He may have to sit for part of the day to teach classes, for example. But he will have to build back up to such things, and there are costs involved. I can say the system is unlikely to clog again, at least for several years, decades if he takes care of himself. But it won’t be what it was.”
I sat back, the import of all of this suddenly too much to bear.
“What do we need to do going forward?” I asked. “I know I went through classes on this, but I can’t seem to remember how to push recovery. I’m not sure we ever learned about anything this big.”
“No, it’s fine. In a telepathy focus, you wouldn’t.” Vega sighed. “As I told his wife, it’s important for him to eat protein, a lot of real animal protein, for a few weeks while his body replaces the protein I stole from the muscle tissue to repair the scarring. He’ll be weak for a while, and he’ll lose far more weight than looks natural, but that’s part of the process. In a few weeks he should be ready to start working on his endurance.”
I swallowed. “What do you mean, endurance?”
“It will take time to learn to walk any distance again, to stand and talk for long periods. It may always hurt him to get his heartbeat above a certain level. The scar tissue isn’t going away. It will not be the way it was, ever.”
“This is the best the Guild can do? You’ve made him a cripple.”
He sat up then. “Your friend nearly died. The best the normals could do was give him another year or two—and that if he survived the next week, which was highly unlikely. I’ve just given your friend his life back. At considerable cost to myself, I might add. I’ll be in pain for days—if not a week—after this, and I’ll be lucky if I can keep food down at all for that time. A little gratefulness wouldn’t be out of order here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. He was right. Every apology still felt like rehab, still felt like my nose in the dirt, swallowing dust and crud. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my friend. I will never forget this.”
He sighed and stood up, and I noticed this time how controlled the movement was, like it hurt, like it hurt on a deep level.
“Listen, about payment . . .”
“I was under the impression that this trip would be covered by the Enforcement division.”
“I’d like to pay you what I can. In money. The rest we can set up on an installment plan, or work out some other way.”
He nodded. “Here’s how you reach the correct parties to work out details.” He held out a small circular chip, like a poker chip, with silver edges. Inside was written a phone number. “Sorry about the pretension, but they find they get lost less this way.”
I put it in a pocket. “Thank you. Really. He’s important to me.”
“He must be.”
CHAPTER 19
“You’re late.” Cherabino stood in the lobby of the Peachtree Building, arms crossed, foot tapping. Michael was next to her with one of his notebooks, jotting the occasional item as passersby crossed the lobby.
“I got caught up.” I didn’t specify what in.
We were standing in one of the largest skyscrapers on earth, with a huge bank of escalators going up three stories from the marbled lobby floor to the main elevators in a towering display of anti-grav technology. Stairs floated, apparently without
support, in a long line going up, up, carrying people in a smooth glide on clear floating glass panels.
Each floating stair fed up through a belt, settling into the anti-grav fields individually, like smoked-glass rectangles falling up a waterfall in neat rows. The power required to run the thing had to be as much as (or more than) a full transcontinental floating Mack truck—or three—and the materials were specialized and highly tuned, but the real technology of the place was in the rotating belt below, and the stabilizing panels on either side.
“Is Swartz going to be okay?” Cherabino had read it off my thoughts without any sloppiness on my part.
You’re getting better at this, I said. But I didn’t really care what she read off me, not right now. Swartz was going to be fine. That was all that mattered in the whole wide world.
Cherabino nodded, responding to the thought thread, and Michael came up on the balls of his feet, his cop’s instincts reacting to body language that didn’t match the verbal conversation. On the streets, that meant there was another layer, a deeper layer—and frequently violence in the works.
I smiled at him, which settled him slightly—and put the conversation back firmly on verbal ground. “They’re on the third floor, right? The most prestigious?”
Cherabino nodded. “Where everyone is forced to come through the escalators here and see how rich they are. Let’s get moving.”
I stepped onto the next plank carefully; it wobbled before taking my full weight, rising smoothly up the stairs. The handrail next to me was a shiny but conventional belt system—I held on to it firmly.
“Doesn’t this bother you?”
I shook my head. “Gravity works on another system, somehow. Doesn’t interact with Mindspace at all.” Which was good; if the anti-grav systems made the waves in Mindspace that strong electromagnetic and quantum fields did, I’d be in trouble just walking down the street with all the cars overhead. “Don’t ask me why it works like that.”