Sharp: A Mindspace Investigations Novel

by Alex Hughes

  Relief—and guilt—hit me like an anvil while I struggled to keep up with Sibley, my hands around the cord, trying ineffectually to get some slack as he yanked me down the length of the hallway. You’re here?

  With Kara and a couple friends. You did say there was another telepath—

  Suddenly the connection was cut off cold as I found myself face-to-face with another man, this one with a Guild patch, a goatee, and some kind of significant weight in Mindspace. How many telepaths had Tamika talked into joining her cause? This was getting ridiculous. Was someone at the Guild involved with this group?

  “We have trouble,” Sibley said. “A guy Jumped in the middle of things. You said nobody could Jump through the field you set up.”

  Goatee looked familiar. Had he been another one of Dane’s students? His face wrinkled up. “I said, unless there’s a Link I don’t know about or a tracer. That almost never happens.” He grabbed my arm and rifled through my brain, his mind going straight through my thin shield before I could think to increase it. Finally he pulled out and kicked me in the shin so I almost fell. “He’s got both. Nothing I would have seen while he was unconscious. We keep him blocked, the Guild can’t follow. But really, your best bet is just to kill him.”

  I was spending too much time among normals, getting sloppy. I built my shields up to battle strength and swore to myself it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t happen again, no matter how tired I was.

  “Fine,” Sibley said.

  “I want my justice,” Tamika hissed.

  “Pay attention to me, Adam.” Sibley shifted me over to his other side, hand still on my back, me still oddly focused on him. “Sorry, we’re out of time.”

  “A few more minutes, okay? I want him to suffer.”

  We ducked into an elevator. When the doors opened and Sibley increased his speed, she had to stretch her short legs all too fast to keep up. She had a scowl on her face as we dashed through a long, cold hallway.

  As we rounded the corner, through the window—finally—I could see the cop cars, lights blazing, pulling into the parking lot. Two large guys with huge automatic weapons started laying out ammunition clips in front of them as another opened the glass window. This was about to get ugly. Really ugly.

  * * *

  There was a door up ahead, at the end of the long hallway. I’d take my chance there, cord or no cord; Sibley had that odd mesmerizing machine, but so what? It wore off, and it could be circumvented. Even odds if I could disable the telepath in front of me, I could take down Sibley too.

  And Tamika—well, she might be immune to mind games, but she was a small woman, with maybe one more shot in the gun, without any extra ammo that I could see. I might die—it only took one bullet, and she’d have plenty of time while I was taking down the telepath and Sibley—but I had to try. I had to. For Emily—for Bellury.

  I was preparing myself mentally, quietly, behind subtle walls and misdirections I hoped would get this Goatee telepath off my back. He was testing my shields, tap, tap, to check for weaknesses. Tap, tap, to check for vulnerabilities. What would happen would happen; I couldn’t warn Cherabino or her fellows, as much as it hurt to admit that, without tipping off my own set of problems. I had no illusions. If it came down to it, Sibley would kill me to save the trouble of transporting me. When the cavalry arrived, my life expectancy dropped. I had to move while I still had the mental strength to do so.

  I took a deep breath as Sibley nodded at Goatee to open the door.

  On the other side were three more guards, gun muzzles pointed directly at me.

  More importantly, behind them was large warehouse space—row after row of shelves two stories high, boxes piled on every available surface, and cranes on tracks far above carrying items in sleds hanging from long hooks. Bright fluorescent lights perched all the way at the top, thirty feet above our heads, banks of windows at the same level adding fresh white sunlight to the mix.

  A tangle of machinery and parts was piled to the right. In the center of the far wall, a bright beam of sunlight coming in around an open moving truck on a loading dock, its back end settled against a raised forklift that beeped slowly as it backed up. A small group of guards and workers were loading a truck.

  And to the left, a long row of machines, machines with clear glass covering more of the cell-like biologicals I’d found in the wreck earlier. Real biologicals, shimmering blue-vein-covered cellular-looking green bodies with long extensions like dendrites, extensions that melded into tubes and circuit boards, extensions that kept the things alive. Maybe six, currently each running their machines, pulsing slowly, living anathemas. A nest of wires stuck out of one of the machines from an open panel, as if an installation hadn’t been finished when we walked in. Here, in this one room, was enough technology to bring the entire country to its knees.

  The sound of air moving across the space came from fans in the walls, and the low hum of working machinery settled in the room, a sound that hit the back of your teeth, and a smell like burned ozone and dust permeated the space.

  The biologicals weren’t networked yet. I could tell because Mindspace shimmered like the haze of an oasis, moving in unexpected jumps and starts around the biologicals like waves. They were on, the fields they produced making the world feel like the deck of an ocean liner jumping beneath me. But they weren’t linked, not yet; I could ride out the waves.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” I asked Goatee. “This stuff could kill you. Will kill you. Killed half the world and more.”

  “From the actions of a madman and a security hole, neither of which will happen again,” the telepath replied. “The Guild has been experimenting with this stuff for years. Tamika’s right. It’s time to even the playing field. And if we make millions doing it, well . . .”

  “The Guild will come after you. That Enforcement agent was only the first of many.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way we’re prepared. We have enough backing to ride it out even if they do come.”

  And the full import of what was going on hit me. The Guild, playing with Tech? Real Tech? Biologicals and machines of every kind? I knew they’d done it a few decades ago, played with powers beyond what they should. I knew they’d flirted with disaster—I’d seen that this summer, when one of those machines threatened everything if the secrets got out. But that was midlevel technology, still illegal but nothing world-class, nothing like the stuff that broke the world from the inside. This—it bowled me over, the sheer gall.

  Nobody should have this technology. Nobody should use it, period. No one should want to; a death toll of millions with people still living who’d seen it should be enough to ensure that. I couldn’t believe, I literally couldn’t believe, that the Guild—or any part of it—was doing this knowingly. What possible advantage did this give them? This stuff burned out telepaths.

  Tamika ran her hands over her gun. “We have four minutes while they finish loading. I’m having my say and then you’re going to kill him.”

  “Get moving!” Sibley gestured at a few of the loaders who were staring. “We leave in five!” Then to Tamika: “Our people in the front won’t hold them for long, and for every death, I have to answer to my boss. You have to answer to Fiske, personally, and he’ll want more than money to pay the bill. I’d suggest you hurry.”

  With that, he turned and left, clearly intending to join the forces holding off the people.

  He left the cord attached to my neck. The cord, like a choke collar for a dog. I felt cold, strangely cold.

  “What could you possibly have to say to me that’s worth all this?” I asked Tamika, numb at last.

  She stepped back, looked at me with disgust. “You still don’t understand, do you? You don’t give a shit about anybody but you. It’s my life we’re talking about.”

  “And you’re killing innocents along the way,” I said, suddenly certain I was going to die and unwilling to go down without fighting. I reached out, hard, at her mind—but it was too twisted. I
couldn’t get a grip. I couldn’t do anything.

  And she had a gun, currently pointed at the floor, a gun with one more bullet in it. If that wasn’t enough, a trained telepath and a guard with a huge automatic gun stood beside her, ready to take me out.

  CHAPTER 27

  While Sibley hurried the rest of the group, now loading the last few machines, another three men with guns settled in front of the one window in the room, maybe two feet away. I heard the sound of gunfire and screaming from the parking lot past them, only somewhat muffled by the building. They couldn’t possibly get away from the back before the cops got them, could they?

  Goatee and the guard next to Tamika looked on, impatiently. They kept looking around, kept monitoring radios, and kept waiting for her to finish her goals. She is in charge here, I thought. For the price of horribly dangerous Tech, she’s managed to buy her way into real power. Suddenly, as if from a distance, I heard the crackle of gunfire beginning. I swallowed, and prayed—really, truly prayed—that neither Cherabino nor Kara would get hit.

  Tamika laughed, a bitter sound. “You know, this wasn’t as much fun as I thought it would be. And turning your head inside out probably isn’t possible. Not without Coleen.”

  “You could let me go. It would be the right thing to do.”

  “The right thing to do? I’m tired of you and your right thing to do.” She frowned. “You know what?” She looked at the guard behind me. “Just kill him.”

  “We need to talk about this,” I responded immediately, then flinched as the guard’s gun stopped inches from my head. My hands were out, my back cowering away.

  She raised her gun—and I had nothing left to lose. There were five of them, five minds, one a relatively strong telepath. I couldn’t take them all out at once with Deconstruction tricks. I couldn’t disable or put to sleep or do anything in Mindspace fast enough. And I was exhausted.

  But I had one card still in my pocket. One painful, difficult card. I was a Level Eight telepath. Level Eight. And, even exhausted, even lacking all control, I’d healed enough to have my power back—my raw, overwhelming numbers. And I had the truth.

  Goatee had forgotten to shield. Amateur.

  I had one shot at this—one. I had one chance to make it right.

  Tamika opened her mouth, and I tore open every boundary I had. I let it all go, and projected at full strength. The first thing telepaths were taught never, never to do. And I’d pay for it—I’d pay for it.

  But for now, for now, I poured literally every ounce of power I had out, like a long scream at the top of my voice, holding nothing back, uncaring of damage.

  I pictured Bellury’s face as he died, shot to death like a dog. Killed, for my sins. For my guilt. I poured that guilt, that guilt that would never go away, out with every inch of me. I poured it out, with anger, with shame, with guilt, in overwhelming quantities.

  The faces around me were ripped open with raw emotion, but it wasn’t enough. The telepath was starting to get his bearings, starting to bear up under it.

  I opened the last box, the scary box, the box that made me shiver and sweat and scream. I opened the last box and forced it out into the air, into Mindspace with all the strength I’d been born with and all the strength I’d gained in a lifetime of work and sweat and tears.

  I opened the lid, and let my deepest fear out of its prison.

  The monster—the horrible monster—that lived in the basement of my mind, the nasty guy that whispered I knew I wasn’t good enough. I knew I’d ruined it all, I’d fucked it up, I’d pissed it away. And I’d never, never amount to anything but pure stupid, helpless failure. Failure. Junkie. Guilty. Useless. Fuckup.

  Tamika called me names then, but the monster liked names. It added names to the mix too, horrible names that spouted out of me like a flood, names and shivering pain and fear of what I’d never be, fear that crawled into everyone’s brain, pain that wouldn’t let them go.

  I fell to my knees, the helpless fury turning inward as the monster roared with its full breath. The only thing I could see, as my vision started to go from the strain, from the horror of holding all of this open and out, from the shame of the monster and everything it said I was—from the horrible belief—the only thing I could see was the others hitting the floor, all the way down.

  I heard someone crying like their world had fallen apart. It might have been me. But another voice joined it, and I didn’t have two voices. The monster pulled out its claws—

  And another voice joined the chorus, this one confused. “What in hell are you doing?” Tamika’s voice echoed into the room. And her footsteps went over to one of the guards. “What’s going on? I told you to shoot!”

  The only woman in the world whose mind was so twisted, so wrenched, even my worst monster didn’t touch her.

  The sound of a bullet, sharp and hard.

  An impact on the floor inches in front of me. A miss. She was out of bullets.

  I took a breath, and poured out my last reserve into Mindspace; this was it. This was it.

  Something hard scraped along the floor, then the sound of a handgun cocking as Tamika took the guard’s gun.

  This was it. There was nothing I could do.

  Failure. Junkie. Guilty. Useless. Fuckup. This is exactly what you deserve, the monster said, and the room moaned.

  The crack of a high-caliber bullet echoed through the room.

  I opened my eyes, the shock loosening the monster’s hold. No pain, no physical pain. I wasn’t dead.

  Tamika fell over, blood seeping through her shirt.

  A bullet went off from the handgun when she hit the floor—and it hit one of the guards, who screamed.

  The last thing I saw before the monster dragged me back under was Cherabino, Isabella Cherabino at the door, nose wrinkled like she had a migraine, holding a rifle.

  * * *

  Inside my mind, the world was black with swipes of red, swipes of red that hung in the air to spell out my failures. Every mistake, every choice I’d made on the streets—stealing and worse, cons and worse, the people I’d mind-raped for money, the death of my friend, the death I couldn’t stop—tortured me. Bellury getting shot, me unable to do anything. Cherabino calling me a failure and meaning it. Paulsen telling me I’d lose my job. Swartz, holding his chest, almost dying.

  The vision, suddenly all too real, the certain knowledge that I’d be alone, completely alone, without even a roof over my head or the right to call myself clean. Without any self-respect. With the certain knowledge that nothing—nothing—I did would ever make it better.

  The cold, dark monster who whispered, Why go on?

  And into the blackness of my mind walked a woman in police-issue heavy body armor, black plates somehow reflecting that light that didn’t exist here. Cherabino held a gun, and she took aim at the monster.

  The thing, like a huge bat, spread its wings and claws—and she shot. Three times. Directly in its chest.

  It laughed. You can’t kill me. You have no power here.

  And for Cherabino, for Cherabino I stood up.

  I looked into the face of my biggest fears, at that lying mouth . . . I looked at the monster I’d been running from for years.

  “Hand me the gun,” I told Cherabino.

  She did, the gun surprisingly heavy and real in my hands, and I shot, slowly, carefully, taking aim like she’d taught me to do in the shooting range. It disappeared like smoke, and then reappeared. It laughed and started to get bigger. I shrank back.

  Cherabino huffed. She turned and slapped me across the face, hard.

  “Ow! What the hell was that for?” I cradled my face, which was going to have the imprint of her hand for sure. The monster had retreated, though; maybe the distraction of the pain was keeping it in its place. It still hurt like a mother.

  “I don’t know. I’m new at this mind stuff. You’re in a coma and I grabbed your arm.” On purpose, her mind added, here where there were no secrets. She swallowed, and I could feel her f
ear, the too-close, too-close, too-close litany her mind was squirreling away, and suddenly she couldn’t meet my eyes. She was hanging on, controlling it desperately, with her cop mind, but inside she was afraid. At what she might know—of me and her and worse—and never be able to take back.

  But there were no secrets, here, in this space; this deep, the Link was as close as she would allow it to be, which in this case—despite the overwhelming fear, despite the panic, despite the issues laid on her like heavy weights—in this case meant she cared, damn it. She trusted me not to hurt her. And maybe—maybe—her mind shied away from any more.

  I couldn’t take that trust; it hurt.

  “I got Bellury killed,” I said, my voice heavy, my own secrets flowing out if she had the peace of mind to grab them.

  “I know,” she said, and sighed. The job sucked sometimes, and cops made mistakes like anybody else. She’d been responsible for a death herself, her rookie year; it never truly left her. “He was a good cop.”

  Sorrow ran over me like water, and she stepped forward with a sigh, putting her arms around me, her head on my chest. “Get us out of here, okay?”

  I looked over at the monster—who felt very small now. He was me, just a part of me. And I held Cherabino in my arms. I breathed in to smell her hair; and there was nothing. We were still outside reality, still in the construct my mind had made to deal with the thing I’d let out.

  I nodded at the monster. He nodded back. Then, holding Cherabino gently, her trust like a delicate flower, I brought us back to reality, slowly.

  Reality was painfully bright.

  I felt it like a blow when her hand left mine.

  CHAPTER 28

  Paulsen was there outside Bellury’s house waiting for me as the sun started its slow slide to sunset. One of the uniforms had dropped me off, and I’d assumed . . .

  “No one has talked to her yet,” Paulsen said. “You were the one there, so it falls to you.” Her face looked odd to me under the shiny brim of the formal uniform cap. The official skirt also looked odd; I realized then I’d never seen her in a skirt. Even on court days she wore pantsuits and jackets built to hide a gun. She was just a little older than Bellury, I realized. I’d never thought of her as old, not like I had Bellury, but she was older. They might have been in some of the same beats, back in that time. They might have worked together.