by Jes Battis
“He’s the only one, right?” I asked Selena once he’d passed.
“Yes. Absolutely the only person in the lab who knows how to work the GPR. Between this and the weapons locker, his salary must be close to mine.”
“Or higher.”
“I was trying not to think about that.”
“How did he end up getting the weapons gig again?”
“He used to be in the army.”
I blinked. “Seriously? I mean, in a research capacity?”
“I don’t know the details. He’s got military training, though.”
I watched the tall, skinny blond man gently pushing an oversized metal detector across an empty beach. He didn’t look particularly like an expert on weapons.
“Ru was found on this spot,” Selena said, “so we’re interested in any thermal signature changes in the area. We need to figure out how he got here. Basuram isn’t about to tell us, and both of them must have some kind of transit device. Especially if the Ptah’li home world is as far away as it seems.”
“It might not be made of metal. It could be partially organic.”
“We’re scanning for just about everything.”
“I’m about to turn on the photomultipliers,” Linus said. “Is everyone’s cell off?”
Selena and I both nodded.
Linus pressed a button on a remote control. The xenon towers clicked open, and dozens of highly sensitive one-pixel cameras emerged from them. The air seemed to thicken slightly. It tasted metallic, heavier. The currents of materia being harvested by the xenon cells were laying invisible lines of tension across the square of beach. The power was almost syrupy and reminded me of a car heater gone bad.
For a while, all we did was watch Linus pushing the GPR over squares of sand demarcated by colored tape. We drank coffee silently. It was too early in the morning to make small talk. Selena’s phone vibrated once, but she ignored it.
“Here’s something,” Linus said, after an hour. “Come and look.”
We walked over and examined the laptop screen. There was a long bar of green with an x-axis at the bottom. The top layer of soil was a yellow plane, and beneath that, there was a green layer that seemed to roil, more liquid than turf, as the radar illumined it. A line of purple, slightly deeper, bisected the green layer, and beneath that was only a cloud of dark, like spilled ink.
Linus pointed to a dark shape, adjacent to the purple. “This could be a lot of things,” he said. “But it’s not a shell or a rock. It’s giving off weak radiation.”
Selena was already dialing a number on her cell. “How far away do I need to be to make this call?”
“Thirty meters. We won’t know where to dig until we’ve processed the radargrams, though. Don’t get too excited.”
“Right.” She was already walking away from us.
I stood in silence for a moment, staring at the black mark on the screen.
“It could be anything,” I said. “And we’ve got less than an hour of darkness left. Maybe it’s just someone’s piggy bank.”
“They don’t generally give off weak radiation.”
“You think it’s made of uranium?”
“It’s made of something that’s buzzing with energy like a hornet’s nest.”
Selena came walking back.
“Who did you call?” I asked.
“Cindée. If we can use carbon markers to get a radioactive signature from the debris, she may be able to match it to mystical trace that we have on file. Or at least to something we’ve heard of.”
“The sun’s rising soon.”
“We’ll keep crowds away for as long as we can. Then we’ll just have to pack up and come back tomorrow. We can make it look like a construction site.”
“On a beach.”
“You’d be amazed what people will believe if you just throw up some caution tape and orange signs. It’s one of the few things that makes our job easier.”
I rolled up my sleeves. “Where do you want me?”
“Nowhere.” She gave me a look of moderate exasperation. “Go home. Get some sleep. You’ll be back in the lab soon enough, and there are plenty of competent shovelers on their way already. I don’t need you here every second.”
“You’re an amazing boss. You do know that, right?”
She shrugged. “I get things done. I cut people too much slack most of the time, but I’d like to think I’m buying my way into heaven.”
“That seems sensible.” I signed the exit log and handed it to her. “I appreciate this. I haven’t been spending a lot of time at home lately.”
“Won’t everyone be in bed?”
“Not in my house. Right now it’s practically cocktail hour.”
The lights were off when I got home, but I could see the glow of the television coming from the den. I could barely hear the sound of canned laughter. It seemed like a classic case of Derrick falling asleep on the couch. But I was surprised that Mia wasn’t still awake. Often at this hour, I’d find her at the kitchen table, drinking strong tea and filling out index cards with facts that I couldn’t possibly imagine.
I threw my purse on the table by the door. It was covered in a layer of spare change and expired bus tickets. It really seemed like we’d cleaned just yesterday. Perhaps we had. I remembered holding a mop at some point, although I wasn’t quite sure what I’d actually done with it.
I hung up my coat and walked into the den, which was really a living room, but I could only think of it as a den because it was usually full of guys. The room was empty, but not without signs of previous habitation. My fuzzy brown Costco blanket had been neatly folded, and there was a glass of water sitting on a coaster. These signs pointed to Derrick or Miles, but the TV was playing an old music video, and Derrick never watched any of those channels. And usually when he was up this late, I’d smell microwave popcorn or coffee, sometimes in combination. Now I wasn’t sure what I smelled. It was almost sour, but not totally unfamiliar. I could think of a few demons who smelled, for lack of a better word, tangy, but not like this.
Really? Am I going to try to explode my pager twice in one week?
This time I wasn’t going to draw my athame. I couldn’t, anyways, since it was still in my purse. I’d been using it to conceal stolen creamer from the break room. Maybe we couldn’t save money on tuition, books, or clothes, but I’d be damned if I was going to pay for creamer every week.
In fact, this time, I wasn’t even going to draw any power. If there really was a maniac in my kitchen, I felt like handling it in a more medieval style. I had a lot of tense energy, and currently, none of my bones were broken. It was as good a time as any to get into a fight, and I was on home territory.
I stepped through the kitchen doorway.
The glow was coming from a small lamp on the table. Miles was sitting in a chair, concentrating on something that he was holding beneath the lamplight. When he saw me, his eyes widened. He touched his right hand flat to his forehead and moved it in small salute. It was the ASL version of a startled Hey.
“Sorry if I scared you.”
He quickly reached for his hearing aids, which were next to the lamp. After he’d adjusted them, he looked up again. “It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting you to be home for another few hours.”
“It’s fine. You’re always welcome here, and we do tend to be at our highest efficiency around this time of night. Speaking of which, did you want some coffee?”
“I’m good, thanks. Don’t you have to wake up early?”
“Too much coffee can make me sleepy. It’s like a warm, slightly neurotic hug before the end of the day.”
“I prefer tea most of the time.”
“My mom drinks tea.”
“My mom drinks gin.”
I laughed. “Nothing wrong with that. I do have one question, though.”
“Yes?”
“Is that a joint you’re holding, Miles?”
“Oh. This?” He looked at the tightly rolled cigarette. “I
t is.”
I sat down next to him. “Officer Sedgwick. It’s like I hardly know you.”
“This is awful, I know.” He closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. Derrick was snoring, the dog’s hogging the rest of the bed, and I couldn’t sleep anyway. Mia went to bed early, and Patrick’s been in his room for the last four hours. I figured there was no harm in it.” He started to rise. “But this is your kitchen, and I’m being negligible, or something along those lines, so I’m just going to clean this up.”
“Are you kidding?” I gestured toward the patio. “Fire it up and we’ll go outside. There’s virtually no wind tonight, for some reason.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Should we—”
“No. We should wake up no one and do nothing. I’m tired, and you’re pretty much my favorite person right now. Let’s just keep it between us.”
“Okay. We don’t have to kill it.”
“Why not? We kill everything else, don’t we?”
Miles and I stepped onto the patio, sliding the door shut behind us. I left the barest inch open, as anyone who’s ever been accidentally locked out of their house before tends to do. Miles fished a lighter out of his jeans pocket and lit the end.
I made a face. “That stinks.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“It’s not necessarily a bad smell. Just a strong one.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got this little thing.”
He pulled a battery-powered fan out of his other pocket. The blades were so small that they barely made any sound when he turned it on, and the breeze, although not exactly refreshing, was more than adequate.
“I can’t believe you carry that thing around in your pocket.”
“Kind of unsexy, right?”
“No way. Adorable.”
“Thanks.”
He took a drag, coughed a little, then handed it to me. I inhaled. It tasted kind of dark-roasted, with just the right amount of skunky attitude. I held the smoke in my lungs for a beat, then exhaled. Miles pointed the fan in my direction, and the cloud dispersed before it could start to smell.
“That’s a pretty good system,” I said, handing the cigarette back to him.
“I know.”
“Almost makes me think this isn’t your first time doing this.”
He winced visibly. He was too nice to keep secrets.
“You’re right. I’m sorry; I’m a monster.”
“Are you kidding? You can do whatever you want on this patio. Don’t ever feel bad about coming out here to relax.”
“It’s pretty stupid, though. I mean, we’re practically police.”
“Practically. But not totally.”
“Were you one of those bad girls when you were at school? One of the ones who used to hang out on the other side of the tennis courts?”
“I was a big fat nothing in high school. And every one of those words is true.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true. I’m not sad about it. I don’t think you’re meant to have fun during that time. I think it’s hell for everybody.”
It must have really been hell for you, I almost blurted out. But then the rational side of my brain kicked in, and I realized that, aside from the statement being totally unverifiable, I had no idea when Miles had even lost the bulk of his hearing.
“I went to a school for the deaf,” he said. “We learned sign first and lip-reading only as a kind of last resort. So it took me a long time to become fluent.” He took another drag and handed it back to me. “It made for some awkward moments. Especially at the doctor’s office.”
“I’ll bet.” I took my last drag and handed it back to him. “I’m done. Thanks. This is better than the ginger ale I was excited about having earlier.”
Miles stubbed out the cigarette and put it away. “Lucian has a deaf brother, right? I remember him telling me that.”
“His name’s Lorenzo. He died, though.”
“When?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know how old Lucian is. He could be some kind of creepy litch-lord, and I’d have no idea.”
“I’m sure he’s not a”—he blinked—“whatever that thing is you just said. It sounded gross. I don’t like necromancers, but Lucian doesn’t seem like the others I’ve met. I don’t stay awake at night worrying about what he’s doing.”
“Why don’t you like them?” I asked. “I mean, aside from the obvious reasons: They’re scary, they run on corpse power, and they live in a weird city filled with oblong black fruit and singing trees.”
Miles looked slightly uncomfortable. “I’m not a necrophobe. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with necroid materia. Death is a part of life. I understand that. But my mother was a necromancer. And when I was born with eighty percent hearing loss, the doctors told her it was rubella.”
He was staring at the patio furniture as he spoke. He couldn’t quite look me in the eye, but his voice was calm. “It wasn’t rubella. I saw it in her face every time she looked at me. She was so guilty. She’d been warned by people in the community, people that knew she was trying to conceive. They told her about the risks, but in the end, she chose the power. She couldn’t separate herself from it. She chose it over her son.”
“Miles. That’s awful.” I looked squarely at him. “But look at you now. You’re amazing. You wouldn’t be working with us otherwise.”
He shrugged. “She was smart, and my dad was smart, so I’m smart. It’s a basic equation. Would I have had an easier life being able to hear? Yeah. But I don’t blame her for choosing herself over me. In the end, she made the choice that kept us both alive, so I guess I should be thankful.”
“My mom just lies to me constantly,” I said. “That’s all I’ve got.”
He rolled his eyes. “Mothers. Why are they so puzzling?”
“I know. It’s like, my mother doesn’t flat-out lie; she just casts these little deceptions wherever she goes, like she’s dropping handkerchiefs or something. She does it in such a pleasant way that when you find out the truth later, you miss the lie. Because at least the lie felt good, and the lie made you waffles.”
“My dad’s the liar in the family,” Miles said. “Mostly, though, he just lies to himself about how tremendously unhappy he is.”
“Are they still married?”
“No, they divorced a long time ago. They both live alone now. My mom’s happy as long as she’s got work to do, but my dad never really had that. Now it’s like he’s just unraveling, like he’s this crooked thread with nowhere to go.”
“My stepdad runs an electronics store. My real dad’s a demon.”
“I know. I mean, Derrick told me a little about that.” His eyes widened. “It sounds really intense.”
“It is, Miles. It’s really intense.”
We were both silent for a while.
“With Derrick, things are simpler,” Miles said. “I spend most of my day concentrating on people’s faces, trying to understand what they’re asking me to do. And they’re always asking me to do something.” He sighed. “But when we’re together, Derrick talks with his hands. And then I get to watch his hands. Which is nice.”
“I wish my ASL were better.”
“It’s fine. You pick up on most things.”
“Right. I’m like the stupid cousin.”
“You’re not the stupid cousin.”
“If you put me in a room full of people speaking in sign, I’d be reduced to the language of a baby. It’d be exhausting.”
“But you know how to listen, and you remember the hand signs that you’ve learned. It’s a start. And if you want to learn more, I can help you.”
“Derrick’s too mean.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“He always gets that look on his face, like, Why aren’t you getting this immediately? And then I just want to kick him.”
“You should. He kicks me sometimes while we’re sleeping, and in the morning, when I show him the bruise, he’s so barely concerned. As if t
his happens to every guy that’s ever slept in his bed.”
“There haven’t been a lot.”
Miles snapped to attention. “Oh—no?”
I stood up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Obviously, I need to go to bed and stop thinking that I can enter into grown-up conversations.”
Miles followed me back into the kitchen. “How many is not a lot?”
“This avenue of questioning is closed for the evening. I’ve already said too much.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Good night.”
“Good night. Thanks for the company.”
“Thanks for listening to me blather on.”
“The blathering was consensual. Night, Tess.”
I closed my bedroom door behind me. The bed was empty and unmade.
Lucian might have been older than the foundations of this house. He might have been older than the city itself. So why was I the one who suddenly felt so old? Sure, there was a beauty to being alone in one’s room, in the dark, about to shed all of your clothing and slip into bed. But the silence and the humidity of the chamber didn’t make me feel liberated. Standing there, I felt more like an overturned bucket. I felt achicado, which in Spanish means shrunken, but also, bailed out, like a leaking vessel.
I opened the window, just to let in a bit of street noise. Then I got into bed and fell asleep twenty minutes later, completely overtaken.
9
I began the morning by staring at a pile of radargrams. They were all variations on a blue plane with faint ripples in its surface. In some of the scans, the ripples were slightly distorted. It looked as if someone had dropped a small stone into a pool of liquid cement. The interference was subtle, but still visible.
“I still have a lot of data to go over,” Linus said. He looked exhausted. “There’s the dewowing. And something called a Butterworth pass. I have to strip away multiple layers of distortion.”
“Dewowing?” I asked.
Linus shrugged. “Don’t ask me; ask the GPR-SLICE interface.”
“Selena wants to start digging tonight.”
“That’s nice for her. If I’m done by nightfall, I’ll text you.”
“Thanks, Linus. You’re a peach.”